THACKERAY'S 


i 


HENRY 

ESMOND 

THE    HISTORY   OF    HENRY   ESMOND,   Esq. 

A  COLONEL   IN   THE  SERVICE    OF   HER   MAJESTY 
QUEEN    ANNE 

WRITTEN   BY  HIMSELF 


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2222546 


''ti^y^?<§^' 


WILLIAM   MAKEl'EACE   THACKERAY. 


THE  HISTORY 


OF 


HENRY  ESMOND,  ESQ. 

COLONEL   IN   THE    SERVICE    OF   HER   MAJESTY 
QUEEN   ANNE 


WRITTEN  BY   HIMSELF 


BY 

/ 

WILLIAM   MAKEPEACE 'THACKERAY 


EDITED,   WITH   INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES 
BY 

JOHN   BELL   HENNEMAN 

PBOFI880B   OF  ENGLISH   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY   OF  THE   bOUTH 
8EWANEE,    TENNESSEE 


.  .  .  servetur  ad  imum 
Qnalis  ab  incepto  processerit,  et  sibi  constet. 


THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.  Ltd. 
1916 

AU  rigiiU  reserved 


Copyright,  1906, 
By  the   MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.      Published  September,  1906k 
Reprinted  August,  1907  ;  April,  1908;  August,  1909; 
August,  1910  :  April,  1911;  July,  1912  ;  July,  1913; 
March,  1914;  February,  1915;  February,  July,  1916. 


Nortoooti  iPreag 

J.  8.  CushinK  Co.  —  Uervvick  &  Smith  Oo. 

Norwood,  MaHH.,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 

Life  and  Works  of  Thackeray 


HENRY   ESMOND 

Preface.     The  Esmonds  of  Virginia  ....  xxiii 

BOOK  I 

The  Early  Youth  of  Henry  Esmond,  up  to  the  time  of 
HIS  leaving  Trinity  College,  in  Cambridge 

CHAPTER 

I.     An  Account  of  the  Family  of  Esmond  of  Castle- 

wood  Hall 4 

n.     Relates  how  Francis,  Fourth  Viscouiv^,  arrives  at 

Castlewood 10 

III.  Whither  in  the  Time  of  Thomas,  Third  Viscount,  I 

had  preceded  him,  as  Page  to  Isabella         .         .       18 

IV.  I  am  placed  under  a  Popish  Priest,  and  bred  to  that 

Religion  —  Viscountess  Castlewood    ...       29 
V.     My  Superiors  are  engaged  in  Plots  for  the  Restora- 
tion of  King  James  II. 36 

VI.  The  Issue  of  the  Plots  — The  Death  of  Thomas, 
Third  Viscount  of  Castlewood :  and  the  Im- 
prisonment of  his  Viscountess     ....       48 


VI  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER 

VII.     I  am  left  at  Castlewood  an  Orphan,  and  find  most 

kind  Protectors  tliere 

VIII.     After  Good  Fortune  comes  Evil        ... 
IX.     I  liave  tlie  Small-pox,  and  prepare  to  leave  Castle 

wood 

X.     I  go  to  Cambridge,  and  do  but  little  good  there 
XI.     I  come  Home  for  a  Holiday  to  Castlewood,  and  find 

a  Skeleton  in  the  House       .... 
XII.     My  Lord  Mohun  comes  among  us  for  no  good 

XIII.  My  Lord  leaves  us  and  his  evil  behind  him 

XIV.  We  ride  after  him  to  London   .... 


63 

72 

82 
102 

109 
123 
133 
147 


BOOK   II 

Contains   Mr.   Esmond's  Military  Life  and  other  Mat- 
ters  APPERTAINING    TO    THE    ESMOND    FaMILY 

I.     I  am  in  Prison,  and  visited,  but  not  consoled  there  167 
II.     I  come  to  the  end  of  my  Captivity,  but  not  of  my 

Trouble 177 

III.  I  take  the  Queen's  Pay  in  Quin's  Regiment     .         .  186 

IV,  Recapitulations 196 

V,     I  go  on  the  Vigo  Bay  Expedition,  taste  Salt  "Water 

and  smell  Powder 203 

VI.     The  29th  December 214 

VII.     I  am  made  welcome  at  Walcote        ....  222 

VIII.     Family  Talk 232 

IX.     I  make  the  Campaign  of  1704 239 

X.    :An  Old  Story  about  a  Fool  and  a  Woman       ,         .  249 

XI.     The  famous  Mr.  Joseph  Addison      ....  259 


CONTENTS  vii 

CnAPTEK  PAGE 

XII.  I  get  a  Company  in  the  Campaign  of  1706        .         .  271 

XIII.  I  meet  an  Old  Acquaintance  in  Flanders,  and  find 

my  Mother's  Grave  and  my  own  Cradle  there    .  276 

XIV.  The  Campaign  of  1707-1708 289 

XV.     General  Webb  wins  the  Battle  of  Wynendael .        .  297 

BOOK  III 

Containing   the    end   of    Mr.    Esmond's   Adventures  in 
England 

I.     I  come  to  an  end  of  my  Battles  and  Bruises    .        .  329 

II.     I  go  home,  and  harp  on  the  old  string      .         .        .  343 

III.  A  Paper  out  of  the  Spectator 358 

IV.  Beatrix's  New  Suitor 378 

V.     Mohun  appears  for  the  last  time  in  this  History       .  389 

VI.     Poor  Beatrix 404 

VII.     I  visit  Castlewood  once  more    .....  410 
VIIL     I  travel  to  France,  and  bring  home  a  Portrait  of 

Rigaud 421 

IX.     The  Original  of  the  Portrait  comes  to  England         ,  431 
X.     We  entertain  a  very  distinguished  Guest  at  Ken= 

sington 446 

XI.     Our  Guest  quits  us  as  not  being  hospitable  enough  .  461 

XII.     A  Great  Scheme,  and  who  baulked  it       .        .        .  472 

XIII.  August  1,  1714 478 

NOTES .  495 


INTRODUCTION 

William  Makepeace  Thackeray  was  born  in  Calcutta, 
July  18,  1811,  the  son  of  Richmond  Thackeray,  who  was  a 
judge  and  collector  of  revenues  in  the  British  service  in  India. 
The  father  died  in  1816  when  the  boy  was  scarcely  five,  and  a 
year  later  the  child  was  sent  to  England  to  get  his  education. 
The  mother  married  again,  after  six  years,  in  1822,  her  second 
husband  being  Major  Henry  Carmichael-Smyth,  an  officer 
in  the  army  and  a  gentleman  who  was  always  kindly  to  his 
step-son.  In  this  same  year,  1822,  Thackeray  entered 
the  Charterhouse,  the  famous  school  of  Steele  ancl  Addison, 
named  in  these  pages  and  delightfully  described  in  .Thack- 
eray's "Xewcomes/'  and  remained  there  six  years.  He 
went  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge,  in  February,  1829,  in  his 
eighteenth  year,  but  remained  at  the  University  only  a  little 
more  than  a  year.  He  seems  to  haA^e  \dsited  Paris  in  the  Easter 
vacation;  at  any  rate,  by  the  end  of  the  summer  of  1830 
he  was  settled  in  Weimar,  Germany.  In  another  year,  the 
autumn  of  1831,  we  find  him  entered  as  a  student  of  law  in 
the  Middle  Temple,  London. 

The  habit  of  writing,  scribbling,  and  sketching,  begun  in 
liis  school  and  college  days,  grew  on  him,  and  he  spent  more 
time  in  filling  pages  with  drawings  and  verses  than  in  writii.'g 
briefs.  Coming  of  age,  Juh^,  1832,  he  came  also  into  his 
inheritance,  and  proceeded  at  once  to  Paris,  bent  on  applying 
himself  to  literature  and  practising  his  drawing.  He  became 
interested  with  his  step-father  in  a  newspaper  venture. 
The  National  Standard,  which  ran  from  January  5,  1833,  to 
February  1,  1834,  when  a  crash  came.  This  check  in  a 
literary  career  gave  him  further  impulse  tovv'ards  art,  and  for 
the  next  two  years  he  passed  the  life  of  an  art  student  in 
Paris.  Then  hopes  again  revived,  he  became  married  in 
August,  1836,  and  in  September  he  and  his  step-father  once 
more  tried  their  fortunes  in  a  newspaper  enterprise,    The 

ix 


X  INTRODUCTION 

Constitutional  and  Public  Ledger.  After  ten  months  thia 
Collapsed  even  more  disastrously  than  the  former  venture 
for  the  purses  of  its  backers, 

Thackeray,  a  young  man  of  twenty-six  with  a  family  to 
support,  was  then  thrown  upon  his  own  resources.  He  began 
to  write  for  any  paper  or  periodical  he  could  find  that  would 
take  his  "stuff,"  and  for  some  years  supplied  drawings  and 
sketches,  and  ground  out  reviews,  art  criticisms,  foreign  cor- 
respondence, poems,  stories,  what  not,  under  various  names 
or  no  name  at  all  so  as  to  sell  better.  In  the  midst  of  this 
bitter  struggle,  after  four  years  of  married  life,  his  wife's 
health  broke  down,  her  mind  gave  \yay,  and  it  was  found 
necessary  to  remove  her  to  a  private  hospital,  where  she 
remained  confined  the  rest  of  her  long  life,  outliving  the 
novehst  many  years.  Fortunately,  he  formed  a  happy  con- 
nection with  Fraser's  Magazine,  continued  through  many 
years,  and  later  one  with  Punch,  shortly  after  that  periodical 
was  started  in  1841 ;  slowly  his  reputation  grew  until  he 
found  himself  famous  with  the  pubhcation  of  "Vanity  Fair" 
in  1847-1848. 

Thackeray's  principal  works  in  point  of  publication  are: 
"The  Yellowplush  Correspondence"  (in  Fraser's  Magazine, 
1838);  "Catherine"  (in  Fraser's,  1839-1840);  "The  Paris 
8ketch-Book,"  1840  (containing  some  new  papers  and  some 
which  had  appeared  in  Fraser's  and  other  publications) ; 
"A  Shabby-Genteel  Story"  (in  Fraser's,  1840) ;  "The  History 
of  Samuel  Titmarsh  and  the  Great  Hoggarty  Diamond" 
(in  Fraser's,  1841) ;  "Fitz-Boodle's  Confessions"  (in  Fraser's, 
1842-1843);  "Miss  Tickletoby's  Lectures  on  English  His- 
tory" (in  Punch,  1842) ;  "The  Irish  Sketch-I^.ook,"  1843  (the 
result  of  a  visit  to  Ireland  and  first  published  in  book  form) ; 
"The  Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon"  (in  Fraser's,  1844);  "Little 
Travels  and  Roadside  Sketches"  (in  Fraser's,  1844-1845); 
"Punch  in  the  East"  (in  Punch,  1845) ;  "Notes  of  a  Journey 
from  Cornhill  to  Cairo,"  1846  (first  published  in  book  form); 
"The  Sno})s  of  lOngland"  (in  Punch,  1846-1847) ;  "Mrs.  Per- 
kins's liall"  (Christmas  Book  for  1846);  "Punch's  Prize 
Novelists"  (in  Punch,  1847);  "Vanity  Fair,"  1847-1848  (in 
twenty   monthly   instalments);     "Our    Street"    (Christmas 


INTRODUCTION  XI 

Book  for  1847) ;  "  Doctor  Birch  and  his  Young  Friends " 
(Christmas  Book  for  1848);  ''The  History  of  Pendennis," 
1848-1850  (in  twenty  instalments);  "Mr.  Brown ^s  Letters 
to  a  Young  Man  about  Town"  (in  Punch,  1849) ;  "Rebecca 
and  Rowena"  (Christmas  Book  for  1849);  "The  Proser" 
(in  Punch,  1850) ;  "  The  Kickleburys  on  the  Rhine  "  (Christmas 
Book  for  1850);  Lectures  on  "The  EngHsh  Humourists  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century,"  deUvered  in  1851  (published  in 
book  form  in  1853);  "The  History  of  Henry  Esmond,  Esq. 
A  Colonel  in  Service  of  Her  Majesty  Queen  Anne.  Written 
by  Himself,"  1852  (first  pubUshed  as  three  volumes);  "The 
Newcomes, "  1853-1855  (in  twenty-four  monthly  instal- 
ments); "The  Rose  and  the  Ring"  (Christmas  Book  for 
1854);  the  first  collected  edition  of  the  "Ballads,"  1855; 
Lectures  on  "The  Four  Georges"  dehvered  in  the  United 
States  in  1855  (published  in  The  CornhiU  Magazine,  1860,  and 
in  book  form  in  1861) ;  "The  Virginians.  A  tale  of  the  Last 
Century,"  1857-1859  (in  twenty-four  monthly  instalments) ; 
"Lovel  the  Widower"  (in  The  CornhiU  Magazine,  1860); 
"The  Roundabout  Papers"  (editorial  papers  in  The  CornhiU 
Magazine,  1860-1863);  "The  Adventures  of  Phihp"  (in 
The  CornhiU  Magazine,  1861-1862) ;  "Denis  Duval"  (left  in- 
complete and  published  in  The  CornhiU  Magazine,  1864). 

In  January,  1860,  Messrs.  Smith,  Elder,  &  Co.,  w^ho  had 
remained  Thackeray's  publishers  since  the  appearance  of 
"Esmond,"  started  a  new  monthly  magazine,  The  CornhiU^ 
and  persuaded  Thackeray  to  become  its  editor.  He  per- 
formed these  duties  for  a  little  more  than  two  years,  but  felt 
them  worrying,  and  resigned  in  March,  1862,  though  con- 
tinuing his  dehghtful  editorial  "Roundabout"  papers  till 
within  a  few  weeks  of  his  death.  He  had  not  been  well 
for  some  time,  but  the  end  came  suddenly  during  the  early 
morning  hours  of  December  24,  1863,  when  he  was  found 
dead  in  his  bed.  He  was  buried  on  December  30  in  the 
cemetery  at  Kensal  Green. 

After  writing  for  many  years  miscellaneous  papers,  sketches, 
and  even  stories,  chieflv  for  Eraser's  Magazine  (apparently 
as  early  as  1831  or  1832  to  1846),  and  for  Punch  from  1842 
on,  Thackeray,  as  said,  achieved  his   first   great  success  at 


Xll  INTRODUCTION 

the  age  of  thirty-five  to  thirty-seven  with  the  pubh cation 
of  "Vanity  Fair."  This  story  appeared  in  monthly  instal- 
ments from  January,  1847,  to  July,  1848,  and  dealt  realisti- 
cally with  the  London  and  English  life  of  his  own  century, 
though  placed  for  reasons  of  expediency  in  the  time  of  a 
generation  before.  Encouraged  by  this  success  and  this 
method  of  publication,  which  suited  well  with  the  author's 
leisurely  habits,  the  absence  of  rapid  narrative,  and  the 
tendency  for  slow  development  and  revelation  of  char- 
acter in  his  work,  he  began  at  once  a  new  novel  of  English 
hfe  of  his  century,  ''The  History  of  Pendennis."  This  again 
ran  in  monthly  instalments  from  November,  1848,  to  De- 
cember, 1850,  with  the  exception  of  the  last  three  months 
of  1849,  when  the  author  was  nearly  at  death's  door.  This 
accounts,  too,  for  the  feeling  that  the  latter  portion  of  that 
story  does  not  always  sustain  the  promise  of  its  splendid 
beginning. 

With  the  opening  of  the  new  year,  1851,  Thackeray  felt 
himself  fairly  before  the  public.  The  two  successes  he  had 
won  encouraged  him  to  other  work,  and  the  spell  of  sickness 
made  him  anxious  about  the  future  of  his  two  girls.  While 
shrinking  from  the  publicity  of  the  undertaking,  yet  believing 
it  would  bring  money  to  the  children  of  the  successful  author 
of  "  Vanity  Fair"  and  "  Pendennis,  "  he  began  in  1851  a  series 
of  public  readings  or  lectures  on  "The  English  Humourists  of 
the  Eighteenth  Century."  The  lectures  were  six  in  number: 
I,  Swift;  II,  Congreve  and  Addison;  III,  Steele;  IV,  Prior, 
Gay,  and  Pope;  V,  Hogarth,  Smollett,  and  Fielding;  VI, 
Sterne  and  Goldsmith. 

There  we  find  the  real  genesis  of  ''Henry  Esmond."  Read 
the  works  of  these  authors  as  Thackeray  did  in  preparing 
for  his  lectures,  —  Swift's  "Journal  to  Stella,"  Congreve's 
comedies,  Addison's  and  Steele's  Taller  s  and  Specta- 
tors, Prior's  society  verse.  Gay's  "Trivia,  or  the  Art  of 
Walking  the  London  Streets"  and  "The  Beggar's  Opera," 
Pope's  "Rape  of  the  Lock,"  —  then  add  the  spirit  of  Ho- 
garth's "Rake's  Progress  "and  Fielding's  method  of  treating 
character  and  life  in  his  novels  (I  believe  that  he  owes 
scarce  anything  to  Smollett),  with  some  admixture  of  Sterne's 


INTRODUCTION  xiii 

sentiment  and  eccentric  humor  and  Goldsmith's  grace  and 
charm,  and  you  have  the  ingredients  out  of  which  Thackeray's 
genius  made  "  Esmond."  Many  seemingly  obscure  references 
Hght  up  from  a  point  in  Swift's  ''Journal"  or  a  passage  in 
the  Taller  or  Spectator.  The  "town"  of  Esmond"  is  the 
town  of  the  Taller  and  Spectator,  the  town  of  Gay's  "Trivia" 
and  Congreve's  "Old  Bachelor"  and  "Way  of  the  World." 
For  the  historical  portions  Thackeray  also  took  Coxe's 
"Memoirs  of  Marlborough,"  and  we  may  remember,  too, 
that  the  early  volumes  of  Macaulay's  "History  of  England" 
had  appeared  in  1848  with  the  vivid  and  picturesque 
Third  Chapter  which  Thackeray  must  both  have  admired 
and  envied.  Above  all,  it  was  Thackeray's  individual 
spirit  and  native  genius  that  knew  how  to  make  its  own 
use  of  this  material.  For  be  it  remembered,  the  work  is  not 
theirs,  —  they  merely   offered   the   suggestion,  —  it  is  his. 

In  Thackeray's  correspondence  there  are  many  references 
to  his  writing  "Esmond."  He  was  then  Hving  at  13  Young 
Street,  Kensington,  which  evokes  so  many  memories  of  the 
story.  He  loved  the  village,  it  was  a  home  for  his  girls,  and 
no  wonder  it  took  so  great  a  hold  on  the  plot.  It  was  where 
the  Dowager  Viscountess  lived,  where  Lady  Castlewood 
took  up  her  abode  to  be  near  the  Court,  where  the  Stuart 
Prince  paid  his  visit  to  her  house,  and  where  the  troops  of  the 
Duke  of  Argyle  marched  into  the  Square.  Thackeray  him- 
self must  have  taken  some  of  those  walks  with  Esmond  from 
London  to  Kensington  across  the  fields  and  meadows,  and 
it  was  from  his  back  window,  w^here  he  wrote,  that  one  could 
"look  over  the  fields  to  Chelsea." 

The  historical  setting  seems  sometimes  to  have  tired  him. 
He  Vv'as  going  from  place  to  place  lecturing;  and  at  the  same 
time  he  was  working,  reading  and  writing  for  his  new  story. 
To  be  true  to  history  he  had  to  follow  up  this  thread  and  look 
up  that  point,  find  a  name  here  and  an  occurrence  there. 
One  day  he  was  on  the  train  going  to  a  distant  point,  another 
day  at  the  Club,  and  a  third  in  the  British  Museum  with  a 
pile  of  books  about  him.  Little  wonder  that  his"  references 
are  sometimes  loose  and  at  times  even  contradictory.  Dur- 
ing the   several  months  in  which  he  delivered   the^  lectures 


Xiv  INTRODUCTION 

and  was  working  on  "  Esmond,"  he  was  living  in  his  thoughts 
in  the  past.  *'I  fancy  myself/'  he  writes,  "almost  as  fa- 
miliar with  one  [the  last  century]  as  with  the  other  [the  present 
age]  and  Oxford  and  Bolingbroke  interest  me  as  much  as 
Russell  and  Palmerston  —  more,  very  likely/'  He  felt  that 
the  work  had  its  heavy  side,  was  at  times  rather  serious 
and  sombre,  and  that  parts  were  written  in  too  low  a  key; 
yet  its  very  dignity  and  stateliness  make  it  what  it  is.  It 
never  becomes  too  familiar,  it  never  bends  to  a  low  tone. 
At  one  time  he  pronounced  it  "dull,  stupid";  yet  in  the 
same  breath  he  declared  it  was  "well  written,"  and  was 
proud  of  the  pains  he  had  expended  upon  it.  He  was 
doubtful  of  its  popularity,  for  it  was  a  new  sort  of  work,  — 
and  many,  like  George  Eliot  and  Charlotte  Bronte,  were 
either  disapproving  or  faint-hearted  in  their  praise.  But  he 
remained  conscious  of  the  hard  labor  he  had  put  upon  it 
and  the  real  results  he  had  obtained.  "Here  is  the  very 
best  I  can  do,"  he  said,  presenting  a  copy  to  the  historian 
Prescott  in  Boston,  "I  stand  by  this  book."  And  his  pub- 
lishers, Messrs.  Smith,  Elder,  &  Co.,  with  whom  he  was  to 
remain  the  rest  of  his  life,  paid  him  £250  in  excess  of  their 
agreement. 

The  method  adopted  by  Thackeray  in  this  work  was  some- 
thing new.  Hitherto  he  had  seemed  somehow  to  be  domi- 
nated by  the  influence  of  Dickens^  so  great  and  so  different  in 
his  genius.  However  far  apart  in  individual  treatment,  yet 
"Pickwick"  had  preceded  "Vanity  Fair";  Dickens  wrote 
Christmas  Books  and  Thackeray  wrote  Christmas  l^ooks; 
"David  Coppcrfield"  and  "Pendennis, "  containing  intimate 
biographical  material  of  each  author,  were  api)earing  in  the 
same  years ;  Dickens  lectured  and  Thackeray  lectured ; 
Dickens  had  visited  America  and  given  offence  by  his  "Amer- 
ican Notes,"  Thackeray  wished  to  go  to  America  and  later 
emphasize  the  brotherhood  of  the  two  nations  by  his  story 
of  "The  Virginians";  afterwards,  in  1859,  Dickens  became 
editor  of  All  the  Year  Round,  another  year,  1860,  and  Thack- 
eray edited  The  Cornhill. 

But  in  writing  "  Esmond"  there  is  no  such  close  comparison 
and  suggestion.     Thackeray  chose  a  subject  in  a  new  field 


INTRODUCTION  XV 

and  adopted  a  new  manner.  It  was  an  historical  novel ;  but 
it  was  a  novel  and  not  a  romance,  as  the  historical  fiction 
before  this  was  inclined  to  be,  as  Scott's  had  been,  as  Dumas's 
were,  as  Dickens's  later  attempt,  "A  Tale  of  Two  Cities," 
proved  to  be.  It  was  not  a  story  of  stirring  adventures  on 
the  part  of  the  hero  and  heroine,  calling  forth  feelings  of 
wonder  and  thrills  of  astonishment ;  it  was  a  serious  attempt 
to  portray  life  and  manners,  and  reveal  truth  of  character, 
even  though  in  a  time  and  century  historically  past. 
Herein  lies  the  essential  difference  of  Thackeray's  produc- 
tion from  others;  and  this  is  the  reason  why  the  English 
world,  believing  that  Thackeray  has  succeeded  in  producing 
these  large  effects,  —  whatever  minor  faults  may  be  pointed 
out,  —  ranks  the  work  as  one  of  the  masterpieces  of  fiction. 

A  writer  of  fiction  had  arisen,  a  portrayer  of  character  and 
painter  of  manners,  who  applied  the  same  method  to  Queen 
Anne's  day  that  he  had  done  to  the  early  years  of  Victoria's. 
He  was  not  seeking  to  portray  the  wonderful  enchantment 
of  a  past  age,  but  was  endeavoring  to  realize  the  fife  of  its 
day.  The  change  is  only  in  time  and  century,  not  in  method 
nor  in  principle.  Thackeray  had  been  interested  in  this 
period  his  whole  life  long.  As  a  schoolboy  at  the  Charter- 
house, —  Steele  and  Addison's  Charterhouse,  —  at  the 
University,  —  even  if  not  their  University,  —  he  had  cared 
for  this  same  period  and  for  these  same  WTiters,  for 
their  portrayal  of  actual  London  fife.  The  novel  of  life  and 
manners,  which  developed  under  Richardson  and  Fielding, 
had  found  its  prototype  and  beginnings  in  the  Taller  and 
Speclalor  sketches  and  descriptions  by  Steele  and  Addison. 
Thackeray  went  back  for  his  models  in  novel-writing,  not  to 
Scott  and  his  followers  in  the  nineteenth  century,  but  to  the 
freer  eighteenth-century  writers.  A  member  of  the  Garrick 
and  the  Athen^pum  Clubs  in  Victoria's  reign  changed  neither 
his  method  nor  his  interests  in  realizing  \Mlls's  and  Lockit's 
and  the  Rose  in  the  reign  of  William  and  ]\Iary  and  of  Anne. 

It  argues  how  strong  was  the  hold  of  Fielding  on  Thack- 
eray that  he  went  to  Fielding's  century  so  as  to  be  able  to  do 
as  Fielding  had  done.  It  is  amid  the  scenes  of  the  eighteenth 
century  that  Thackeray  first  discovered  his  method  and  recog- 


X  VI  INTROD  UC  now 

nized  his  genius.  Did  Thackeray  write  "Ehzabeth  Brown- 
rigge"  in  1832?  It  was  a  satire  on  Bulwer's  ''Eugene 
Aram";  and  "Ehzabeth  Brownrigge"  prepared  for  "Cath- 
erine," and  "Catherine"  prepared  for  "Barry  Lyndon,"  and 
"Barry  Lyndon"  in  many  ways  for  "Esmond,"  and  "Es- 
mond" for  "The  Virginians."  "Catherine"  in  1839  had 
been  a  forestudy  of  "Barry  Lyndon"  in  1844;  and  "Barry 
Lyndon,  "  too  clever  and  different  from  the  current  manner  to 
be  rightly  understood  by  a  literal-minded  generation,  in  the 
light  of  Fielding's  "Jonathan  Wild"  is  now  regarded  as  a 
masterpiece  of  ironical  portrayal,  deserving  to  rank  in  the 
highest  class  of  the  author's  compositions.  Indeed,  there  are 
not  even  wanting  those  who  prefer  "Barry  Lyndon"  and 
"Henry  Esmond"  to  "Vanity  Fair,"  "Pendennis, "  and 
"The  Newcomes." 

The  old  pictures  show  our  author  the  dress  and  accom- 
paniments, —  the  wigs,  the  doublets,  the  swords,  the  horses, 
the  dogs,  the  monkey,  the  parrots,  the  black  boy  attendant, 
the  sedan-chairs,  the  assemblies  and  routs  and  balls,  the 
quarrels  of  the  men,  the  jealousies  of  the  women,  their  card- 
playing  (gambling  is  but  referred  to  and  is  largely  suppressed, 
to  reappear  in  the  story  of  Esmond's  grandson  in  "The  Vir- 
ginians"), their  drinking,  and  their  duelhng.  These  give  the 
background,  just  as  one  or  two  old-fashioned  spellings,  not 
always  consistent,  suggest  the  literary  manner  and  con- 
versation. But  even  these  are  not  the  real  thing  —  for  it  is 
against  these  that  the  critics  usually  aim  th?ir  lances.  It  is 
the  portrayal  of  the  men  and  women  who  are  flesh  and  blood 
and  exist  for  us  in  definitely  drawn  hnes,  that  gives  the  work 
its  significance.  A  word  or  two,  an  action,  —  representing 
what  is  human  so  far  as  it  goes,  and,  even  if  it  be  not  the 
whole  truth,  bearing  truth  and  consistency  in  itself —  never 
loses  its  value,  whatever  technical  mistakes  in  details  and 
facts  may  be  pointed  out. 

Beatrix  is  fair  and  —  l^eatrix.  One  thinks  of  her  instinc- 
tively in  naming  the  novel ;  and  she  stands  by  the  side  of 
Becky  Sharp  and  Colonel  Newcome  as  one  of  three  great 
characters  in  fiction  Thackeray  has  (Teated.  It  was  a 
stroke    of    genius    to    represent    mother    and   daughter   as 


INTRODUCTION  XVU 

rivals  in  the  affections  of  the  liero.  Lady  Castlewood, 
with  all  her  charm  and  beautv  of  disposition,  is  not  a 
piece  of  heavenly  perfection;  she  can  be  cruel  and  unjust 
to  Esmond,  she  is  jealous  of  her  daughter,  and  she  is 
severe.  The  author  himself  declared  that  Henry  Esmond 
was  "a  prig"  and  that  he  was  "writing  a  book  of  cutthroat 
melancholy  suitable  to  ray  state."  Esmond  is  nicknamed 
"Don  Dismallo"  and  "Killjoy";  but  it  is  Esmond  who  is 
telling  his  Memoirs,  and  it  is  more  pardonable  to  represent 
himself,  who  was  to  become  the  husband  of  her  who  had  been 
his  ''goddess  surely"  and  then  "dear  mother,"  as  serious 
and  sombre  and  thoughtful  and  wise.  It  was  as  consistent  to 
put  an  Esmond,  a  Beatrix,  and  a  Lady  Castlewooa  in  Queen 
Anne's  day,  as  a  Becky  Sharp,  a  Rawdon  Crawley,  and  a 
Lord  Ste5^ne  at  the  time  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo. 

There  was  one  other  reason  for  the  singular  hold  of  "Es- 
mond" on  the  English  reading  world.  The  work  did  not  come 
out  in  instalments  hke  the  pre\aous  efforts,  with  almost 
necessary  deflections  in  purpose  and  consequent  weakness  in 
plot,  but  it  was  handed  over  to  the  publisher  in  three  books  or 
volumes,  as  was  then  the  mode  of  publication.  The  author 
thus  knew  both  the  beginning  and  the  end  together,  put  more 
pains  upon  the  construction,  could  attain  better  proportion 
and  a  clearer  plot  and  achieve  a  greater  art.  It  was  begun 
late  in  1851  and  progressed  all  winter  and  spring,  was  fairly 
under  way  by  summer,  the  introduction  was  written  Octo- 
ber 18,  and  the  last  proof-sheet  looked  over ;  and  as  the  author, 
impatient  to  start  for  America  on  his  lecturing  tour  in  that 
country,  was  standing  on  the  wharf  ready  to  take  the  boat, 
October  30,  1852,  tlie  three  volumes  were  placed  in  his  hands. 
Thackeray  was  justly  proud  of  it,  he  felt  it  was  the  most  care- 
ful piece  of  work  he  had  done,  and  while  still  lecturing  on 
"The  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century"  before  Ameri- 
can auchences,  he  could  present  it  to  a  friend  to  be  read  as  a 
complement  and  a  sequel. 

But,  for  the  moment  to  continue  our  historical  develop- 
ment, other  studies  followed.  There  was  a  new  story  and 
a  new  set  of  lectures.  "Esmond"  and  the  visit  to  America 
were  to  produce  other  results.     For  the  novelist  of  manners, 


xviii  INTRODUCTION 

to  deal  ^vith  Whig  and  Tory  and  Jacobite  machinations  in  the 
days  of  William  and  of  Anne  was  to  follow  it  up  by  telling 
the  story  of  "The  Four  Georges."  The  four  lectures  on 
these  subjects  were  not  only  to  be  worked  out,  but  they 
were  to  be  first  given  to  the  American  people.  And  later 
there  was  to  be  an  American  romance. 

Meanwhile  the  "Carthusian"  —  as  all  good  "Charter- 
house" folk  were  called  —  who  had  loved  to  portray  Steele 
and  Addison  in  the  pages  of  "Esmond"  wished  to  centre 
another  story  of  London  and  English  life  about  the  old 
school.  The  outcome  was  "The  Newcomes,"  and  the 
monthly  instalments  began  after  Thackeray's  return  from 
abroad  and  continued  from  October,  1853,  to  August,  1855. 
By  that  time  "The  Four  Georges"  were  ready  and  Thack- 
eray returned  to  America.  Then,  with  America  fresh  in 
mind  and  its  kind  hospitality  a  glowing  remembrance,  there 
came  the  desire  to  reconcile  the  two  great  divisions  of  the 
Endish -speaking  race.  Soon  after  getting  back  again,  the 
instalments  of  the  new  novel,  "The  Virginians,"  began  to 
appear,  and  continued  for  the  next  two  years,  from  Novem- 
ber, 1857,  to  October,  1859.  In  "The  Virginians"  we  have 
presented  Henry  Esmond's  and  Lady  Castle  wood's  grand- 
children, the  two  sons  of  Rachel  Esmond  Warrington,  the 
editor  of  Esmond's  memoirs  ;  Beatrix  appears  again  as  the 
Dowager  Baroness  de  Bernstein  —  for  the  Reverend  Tom 
Tusher  soon  died;  and  while  in  plot  and  construction  the 
novel  breaks  in  two,  the  manners  of  George  II's  and  George 
Ill's  da3^s,  the  middle  and  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  cen- 
tury, the  manners  portrayed  by  Hogarth  and  Fielding,  by 
Sterne  and  Goldsmith  and  Johnson,  are  given  in  a  series  of 
brilliant  pictures. 

We  have  spokon  of  Thackeray's  methods.  What,  it  may 
be  asked,  of  their  results?  Thackeray  succeeds  because  of 
his  ability  to  make  his  portrayals  human.  The  furniture 
and  dress,  the  one  or  two  older  spellings  and  uses  of  words, 
do  not  give  the  charm,  though  they  may  heighten  the  sug- 
gestion. "Henry  Esmond"  is  a  great  novel,  not  on  account 
of  these  characteristics,  but  at  times  in  spite  of  them.  Some- 
times  Thackeray   writes  "writ,"  and   sometimes   he  writes 


INTRODUCTION  Xix 

"wrote."  Words  now  ending  in  c  are  spelled  ck]  the 
spelling  of  "sat"  is  "sate";  "am  come"  and  "am  gone" 
are  used  for  "have  come"  and  "have  gone";  and  so  forth. 
But  an  author  can  wiite  in  that  way  and  write  neither  in 
the  Queen  Anne  style  nor  successfully.  Thackeray  makes 
slips  and  positive  blunders.  He  calls  the  notorious  Lady 
Dorchester  Tom  Killigrew's  daughter,  when  she  was  the 
daughter  of  another  wit  of  the  day,  Sir  Charles  Sedley.  He 
gives  Mohun  the  name  "  Harry,  "  when  his  name  w^as  Charles. 
Follo\^ang  history,  he  has  Lords  ^lohun  and  Hamilton  quarrel 
over  an  inheritance  and  kill  each  other  in  a  duel,  but  makes 
them  brothers-in-law,  when  their  wives  had  a  common  uncle, 
not  a  common  father.  The  actress,  Will  Mountford's  widow, 
then  Miiie.  Verbruggen,  he  designates  "a  veteran  charmer  of 
fifty,"  when  she  had  died  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-two.  He 
repeats  details  over  and  over  again  to  make  them  clear  and 
to  hold  them  distinct  before  the  reader's  attention.  Some- 
times he  forgets  and  puts  a  thing  one  way  on  one  page  and 
then  in  another  way  a  Uttle  later.  "Honest  Lockwood," 
Esmond's  attendant,  is  called  "Job"  in  the  early  pages  of 
the  book,  then  becomes  "John,"  later  is  made  "Tom,"  and 
once  more  reverts  to  "John."  Lady  Castlewood's  father,  the 
Ex-Dean,  is  made  to  conform,  —  Lady  Castlewood  out  of 
the  joy  of  her  heart  at  the  reunion  on  the  twenty-ninth  of 
December  tells  Esmond,  — yet  a  httle  later  he  dies  trium- 
phant, true  to  the  old  Jacobite  cause.  Our  author  cares  little 
for  strict  chronology.  Writings  are  referred  to  that  did  not 
appear  until  after  the  death  of  Queen  Anne,  when  our  story 
ends ;  but  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  Memoirs  are  sup- 
posed to  be  written  after  the  migration  to  Virginia  in  Es- 
nond's  old  age.  Even  that  can  hardly  excuse  Beatrix  and 
Esmond's  alluding  to  the  fairy  Gawrie  in  Paltock's  "Peter 
Wilkins"  which  was  not  published  before  1750.  And  even 
though  Rachel  Warrington  dates  her  Preface  as  late  as  1778, 
she  could  hardly  have  known  of  Count  Rochambeau's  coming 
over  to  aid  the  Americans  in  1780. 

But  what  of  all  these  things  and  many  more  ?  It  is  only 
the  student  that  takes  notes  and  studies  the  precise  details, 
who  sees  the  minute  flecks  and  weather-stains  here  and  there 


XX  INTRODUCTION 

The  reader  gets  interested  in  the  big  things,  the  make-believe 
and  the  truth,  the  splendid  construction  and  fine  portrayal, 
the  big  humanity,  the  great  humanness,  the  large  life,  and 
the  pleasing  charm.  And  all  these  are  there.  "Esmond" 
is  a  great  novel,  because  of  its  real  truth  and  its  noble  senti- 
ment. It  is  seen  in  the  contrasts  between  mother  and  daugh- 
ter, one  a  foil  to  the  other  and  each  alternately  charming  and 
winning  us,  as  they  both  win  Esmond.  It  is  not  Esmond's 
sombreness  nor  his  perfections  that  we  particularly  admire, 
but  his  truth,  the  novelist's  truth  to  the  fundamental  ideals 
of  the  English  word  "gentleman,"  can  stir  us.  It  is  the  same 
qualities  that  make  the  great  characterizations  and  portrayals 
of  Shakespeare  and  of  Scott  lasting.  They  have  discerned 
and  expressed  the  ideals  of  the  English  race  and  some  of 
the  fundamental  conceptions  of  man.  For  the  world  loves 
ideals  and  strength  and  truth.  It  is  willing  to  have  its  heroes 
and  heroines  expose  their  weaknesses,  whether  leading  to 
tragedy  or  sharing  in  comedy;  but  it  demands  that  certain 
dominating  and  fundamental  conceptions  should  remain  fixed, 
as  it  expects  day  to  be  day  and  night  night,  and  the  stars  to 
remain  in  their  courses. 

Thackeray's  closeness  to  historical  fact  is  in  many  ways 
remarkable,  even  though  at  the  end  he  invents  an  expedient 
to  introduce  the  Stuart  Prince  into  England,  which  he  takes 
pains  to  declare  is  Esmond's,  i.e.  Thackeray's,  own.  The 
wars  and  campaigns  of  Marlborough  are  given  with  remarkable 
—  for  the  purposes  of  the  story,  with  almost  wearying — de- 
tail. The  story  of  Webb,  Cadogan,  and  Marlborough  is  also 
true  to  fact.  The  over-emphasis  of  Webb  is  explained  by 
his  being  a  connection  of  the  author's.  As  to  the  truth  of 
Thackeray's  historical  portrayals,  some  question  may  be 
raised.  They  are  unrjuestionably  true  to  themselves  and  to 
their  conceptions,  but  are  these  concei)tions  true  to  historical 
fact?  The  office  of  the  novelist  is  not  that  of  the  judicial 
and  interpretative  historian.  His  purpose  is  to  interpret  his 
characters  as  he  sees  them.  All  these  concreptions,  whether 
true  to  actual  fact  or  not,  are  true  to  definite  traditions  re- 
corded of  them,  and  for  the  dramatic  })urposes  of  a  work  of 
fi(;tion  that  is  sufficient.     It  was  Shakespeare's  method  in 


INTRODUCTION  XXI 

his  History  Plays,  and  it  is  that  of  every  dramatist  and 
writer  of  fiction.  Indeed,  the  author  can  even  change  the 
current  opinion,  pro\dded  only  that  in  his  further  portrayal 
he  remain  true  in  the  psychological  development  of  his 
conception. 

Marlborough's  is  a  gi'eat  portraiture,  even  though  it  may 
not  be  altogether  just.  It  is  meant  to  be  given  from  one  point  of 
view  —  that  of  a  rival  and  political  opponent.  General  Webb. 
The  figure  of  Swift  as  a  burly,  intimidating  Irishman  is  un- 
deserved caricature.  Steele's  drunkenness  is  dwelt  upon  out 
of  all  proportion.  Thackeray  gives  him  to  us,  not  drunk  once 
or  twice,  but  drunk  always.  In  that  state  of  mind  one  could 
not  write  such  delightful  and  spirited  Tatlers  and  /Spec- 
tators. Yet  all  these  figures  remain  with  us  as  lifelike  in 
themselves,  whether  they  represent  the  real  men  or  not. 

The  illusion  of  the  Memoirs  is  kept  up  hazily.  Ostensibly 
wi'itten  in  the  first  person,  the  book  is  really  written  in  the 
third  person,  \\dth  only  now  and  then  an  occasional  first  per- 
son slipped  in  to  remind  the  reader  not  to  forget  the  fiction 
of  j\Iemoirs.  For  the  same  purpose  alternations  are  made  more 
or  less  illogically  between  present  and  past  tenses.  Towards 
the  close,  in  the  third  book,  mere  subterfuges  for  the  same 
end  occur  in  apparent  notes  from  Hemy  Esmond,  the  author, 
and  Rachel  Esmond  Warrington,  the  editor,  of  the  Memoirs. 
Thackeray  enjoyed  these,  as  we  do;  but  they  are  mere 
excrescences  and  do  not  make  the  story. 

Enough  of  the  author's  old  habits  remained ;  he  could  not 
forget  them.  His  morahzings  on  situations  of  his  characters 
are  frequent  even  in  a  seeming  historical  work  of  fiction. 
Sometimes  these  moralizings  are  under  the  guise  of  Esmond's 
character,  where  they  are  more  justified;  but  as  frequently 
they  are  undisguised  Thackerayan  apart  from  any  connection 
whatever  with  Esmond.  The  author  forgets  Esmond  is 
supposed  to  be  WTiting;  the  deus  ex  machina  descends  and 
directs  the  puppets,  and  comments  even  on  Esmond's  own 
imbecilit^^  in  a  way  that  would  have  hurt  that  young  gentle- 
man very  much,  and  in  words  which  he  never  could  have 
thought  himself,  and  never  would  have  permitted  another  to 
say.     Thackeray's  insistent  democracy  breaks  out  once  or 


xxii  INTRODUCTIOIT 

twice  but  is  checked ;  and  once  there  is  a  blemish  in  Thack« 
eray's  coming  out  openly  to  ridicule  the  methods  of  romance. 
In  neither  of  these  mental  attitudes  would  the  reputed  writer 
of  these  Memoirs,  Mr.  Esmond,  have  understood  the  author, 
Mr.  Thackeray. 

The  discussion  of  Church  relations  and  the  re\ival  of  ritual- 
ism, something  belonging  of  itself  to  the  close  of  the  seven- 
teenth century,  was  increased  by  the  ritualistic  movement  at 
Oxford  in  the  nineteenth  century,  a  movement  of  which 
Thackeray  could  not  have  been  a  wholly  disinterested  witness. 
The  skill  with  which  the  conservative  and  unpopular  side  is 
purposely  taken  and  made  attractive,  with  a  view,  in  the 
end,  to  show  with  still  greater  conviction  the  mistakes  of 
the  premises,  is  little  short  of  magical.  References  are  made 
in  "Esmond''  to  the  Crawleys  and  to  the  Warringtons,  just 
sufficiently  to  connect  it  with  its  two  predecessors,  "Vanity 
Fair"  and  "Pendennis." 

There  are  many  dramatic  scenes,  and  in  so  far  the  art  is 
true  to  the  traditional  ideals  of  historical  and  of  all  fiction. 
Lord  Mohun  becomes  the  villain  of  the  story.  The  same  man 
slays  in  duels  both  Beatrix's  father  and  Beatrix's  lover;  and 
both  times  Esmond  must  suffer  a  natural  injustice.  The  im- 
pression made  by  Beatrix  descending  the  stairs  —  an  index 
of  her  character  as  well  as  of  her  loveliness  —  is  used  twice, 
upon  Esmond  at  his  return  and  upon  the  Stuart  Prince. 
The  reconciliation  in  the  Cathedral  combines,  with  the 
Psalter  for  the  day  —  it  should  be  the  twenty-seventh  of 
December  —  and  the  spirit  of  the  Cathedral  service,  to 
produce  an  impression  of  almost  lyrical  ecstasy.  The  break- 
ing of  the  swords  at  the  close  is  the  breaking  of  the  Eng- 
lish nation  with  the  Stuart  past  —  it  is  the  best  in  England 
scorning  the  base  and  the  low,  preferring  personal  honor  to 
personal  advantage,  cherishing  the  ideals  of  the  individual 
and  holding  the  faith  of  the  race  pure  and  true. 

Looking  at  details,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  pick  flaws  and 
point  out  anachronisms  and  discern  technical  faults;  but  if 
we  regard  it  as  a  whole  from  the  impression  it  cannot  fail 
to  make,  "Henry  Esmond"  is  not  only  one  of  Thackeray's 
best  works,  it  is  one  of  the  great  novels  of  the  world. 


HENRY  ESMOND 

AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

THE  ESMONDS  OF  VIRGINIA 

The  estate  of  Castlewood,  in  Virginia,  which  was  given  to 
our°  ancestors  by  King  Charles  the  First,  as  some  return 
for  the  sacrifices  made  in  His  jMajesty's  cause  by  the  Esmond 
family,  hes  in  Westmoreland"  county,  between  the  rivers 
Potomac  and  Rappahannoc,  and  was  once  as  great  as  an  5 
English  Principahty,  though  in  the  early  times  its  revenues 
were  but  small.  Indeed  for  near  eighty  years  after  our 
forefathers  possessed  them,  our  plantations  were  in  the 
hands  of  factors,  who  enriched  themselves  one  after  another, 
though  a  few  scores  of  hogsheads  of  tobacco  were  all  the  10 
produce  that,  for  long  after  the  Restoration,  our  family 
received  from  their  Virginian  estates. 

My  dear  and  honoured  father,  Colonel  Henry  Esmond, 
whose  history,  wi'itten  by  himself,  is  contained  in  the  accom- 
panying volumes,  came  to  Virginia  in  the  year  1718,  built  15 
his  house  of  Castlewood,  and  here  permanently  settled. 
After  a  long  stormy  life  in  England,  he  passed  the'remainder 
of  his  many  years  in  peace  and  honour  in  this  country ;  how 
beloved  and  respected  by  all  his  fellow-citizens,  how  in- 
expressibly dear  to  his  family,  I  need  not  say.  His  whole  2a 
life  was  a  benefit  to  all  who  were  connected  with  him.  He 
gave  the  best  example,  the  best  advice,  the  most  bounteous 
hospitality  to  his  friends ;  the  tenderest  care  to  his  depend- 
ants; and  bestowed  on  those  of  his  immediate  family  such 
a  blessing  of  fatherly  love  and  protection,  as  can  never  be  25 
thought  of,  by  us  at  least,  without  veneration  and  thank- 
fulness; and  my  sons'  children,  whether  established  here  in 
our  Republick°  or  at  home,  in  the  always  beloved  mother 


Xxiv  ■  PREFACE 

country,  from  which  our  late  quarrel  hath  separated  us, 
may  surely  be  proud  to  be  descended  from  one,  who  in  all 
ways  was  so  truly  noble. 

My  dear  mother  died  in  1736,  soon  after  our  return  from 
5  England,  whither  my  parents  took  me  for  my  education ; 
and  where  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  Mr.  Warrington, 
whom  my  children  never  saw.  When  it  pleased  Heaven,  in 
the  bloom  of  his  youth,  and  after  but  a  few  months  of  a 
most  happy  union,   to  remove  him  from  me,   I  owed  my 

lo  recovery  from  the  grief  which  that  calamity  caused  me, 
mainly  to  my  dearest  father's  tenderness,  and  then  to  the 
blessing  vouchsafed  to  me  in  the  birth  of  my  two  beloved 
boys.  I  know  the  fatal  differences  which  separated  them 
in  politicks  never  disunited  their  hearts;   and,  as  I  can  love 

15  them  both,  whether  wearing  the  King's  colours  or  the  Re- 
publick's,  I  am  sure  that  they  love  me,  and  one  another, 
and  him  above  all,  my  father  and  theirs,  the  dearest  friend 
of  their  childhood;  the  noble  gentleman,  who  bred  them 
from  their  infancy  in  the  practice  and  knowledge  of  Truth, 

20  and  Love,  and  Honour. 

My  children  will  never  forget  the  appearance  and  figure  of 
their  revered  grandfather ;  and  I  wish  I  possessed  the  art  of 
drawing  (which  my  papa  had  in  perfection),  so  that  I  could 
leave  to  our  descendants  a  portrait  of  one  who  was  so  good 

25  and  so  respected.  My  father  was  of  a  dark  complexion,  with 
a  very  great  forehead  and  dark  hazel  eyes,  overhung  by 
eye-brows  which  remained  black  long  after  his  hair  was 
white.  His  nose  was  aquiline,  his  smile  extraordinary 
sweet.       How  well  I  remember  it,  and  how  little  any  de- 

30  scription  I  can  write  can  recall  his  image  !  He  was  of  rather 
low  stature,  not  being  above  five  feet  seven  inches  in  height; 
^-^e  used  to  laugh  at  my  sons,  whom  he  called  his  crutches, 
and  say  they  were  grown  too  tall  for  him  to  lean  upon, 
liut  small  as  he  was  he  had  a  perfect  grace  and  majesty  of 

35  dc^portmont,  such  as  I  have  never  seen  in  this  country, 
excei)t  perhaps  in  our  friend,  Mr.  Washington;  and  com- 
manded respect  wherever  he  appeared. 

In  all  bodily  exercises  he  excelled,  and  showed  an  extra- 
ordinary quickness  and  agility.     Of  fencing  he  was  especially 


PREFACE  XXV 

fond,  and  made  my  two  boys  proficient  in  that  art ;  so  much 
so,  that  when  the  French  came  to  this  country  with  Mon- 
sieur Rochambeau,°  not  one  of  his  officers  was  superior  to 
my  Henry,  and  he  was  not  the  equal  of  my  poor  George, 
who  had  taken  the  King's  side  in  our  lamentable  but  glorious  5 
war  of  independence. 

Neither  my  father  nor  my  mother  ever  wore  powder  in 
their  hair;  both  their  heads  were  as  white  as  silver,  as  I 
can  remember  them.  My  dear  mother  possessed  to  the  last 
an  extraordinary  brightness  and  freshness  of  complexion ;  la 
nor  would  people  believe  that  she  did  not  wear  rouge.  At 
sixty  years  of  age,  she  still  looked  young,  and  was  quite  agile. 
It  was  not  until  after  that  dreadful  siege  of  our  house  by  the 
Indian3,°  which  left  me  a  widow  ere  I  was  a  mother,  that 
my  dear  mother's  health  broke.  She  never  recovered  her  15 
terror  and  anxiety  of  those  days,  wdiich  ended  so  fatally  for 
me,  then  a  bride  scarce  six  months  married,  and  died  in 
my  father's  arms  ere  my  own  year  of  widowhood  was 
over 

From  that  day,  until  the  last  of  his  dear  and  honoured  20 
life,  it  was  my  delight  and  consolation  to  remain  with  him 
as    his    comforter   and   companion;    and    fiom    those   little 
notes,  w^hich  my  mother  hath  made  here  and  there  in  the 
volumes   in  which   my   father    describes   his   adventures   in 
Europe,  I   can  well  understand   the   extreme  devotion  with  25 
which   she    regarded    him;    a    devotion    so    passionate    and 
exclusive  as  to  prevent  her  I  think  from  loving  any  other 
person  except  with  an  inferior  regard,  her  whole  thonghts 
being  centred  on  this  one  object  of  affection  and  worship.     I 
know  that  before  her,  my  dear  father  did  not  show  the  love  30 
which   he  had  for  his  daughter:   and  in  her  last  and  most 
sacred  moments,  this  dear  and  tender   parent  owned  to  me 
her   repentance   that   she   had   not   loved   me   enough;    her 
jealousy  even   that   my  father  should  give  his  affection   to 
any  but  herself:  and  in  the  most  fond  and  beautiful  words  35 
of  affection  and  admonition,   she   bade   me  never   to  leave 
him  ;  and  to  supply  the  place  which  she  was  quitting.    With  a 
clear  conscience,  and  a  heart  inexpressibly  thankful,  I  think 
I  can  say  that  I  fulfilled  those  dying  commands,  and  that 


xxvi  PREFACE 

until  his  last  hour,  my  dearest  father  never  had  to  complain 
that  his  daughter's  love  and  fidelity  failed  him. 

And  it  is  since  I  knew  him  entirely,  for  during  my  mother's 
hfe  he  never  quite  opened  himself  to  me,  since  I  knew  the 
5  value  and  splendour  of  that  affection,  which  he  bestowed 
upon  me,  that  I  have  come  to  understand  and  pardon  what, 
I  own,  used  to  anger  me  in  my  mother's  life-time,  her  jealousy 
respecting  her  husband's  love.  'Twas  a  gift  so  precious,  that 
no  wonder  she  who  had  it,  was  for  keeping  it  all,  and  could 

10  part  with  none  of  it,  even  to  her  daughter. 

Though  I  never  heard  my  father  use  a  rough  word,  'twas 
extraordinary  with  how  much  awe  his  people  regarded  him ; 
and  the  servants  on  our  plantation,  both  those  assigned  from 
England  and  the  purchased  negroes,   obeyed  him  with  an 

15  eagerness  such  as  the  most  severe  task-masters  round  about 
us  could  never  get  from  their  people.  He  was  never  familiar 
though  perfectly  simple  and  natural;  he  was  the  same  with 
the  meanest  man  as  with  the  greatest,  and  as  courteous  to 
a  black  slave-girl  as  to  the  Governor's  wife.     No  one  ever 

20  thought  of  taking  a  liberty  with  him  (except  once  a  tipsy 
gentleman  from  York,°  and  I  am  bound  to  own  that  my 
papa  never  forgave  him)  :  he  set  the  humblest  people  at 
once  on  their  ease  with  him,  and  brought  down  the  most 
arrogant    by   a   grave    satirick   way,    which   made    persons 

25  exceedingly  afraid  of  him.  His  courtesy  was  not  put  on 
like  a  Sunday  suit,  and  laid  by  when  the  company  went 
away;  it  was  always  the  same,  as  he  was  always  dressed 
the  same  whether  for  a  dinner  by  ourselves  or  for  a  great 
entertainment.     They  say  he   liked   to   be   the   first  in   his 

30  company;  but  what  company  was  there  in  which  he  would 
not  be  first?  When  I  went  to  l^^urope  for  my  education, 
and  we  passed  a  winter  at  London,  with  my  half-brother, 
my  Lord  Castlewood  and  his  second  Lady°,  1  saw  at  Her 
Majesty's  Court  some  of  the  most  famous  gentlemen  of  those 

35  days;  and  I  thought  to  myself,  none  of  these  are  better 
than  my  papa:  and  the  famous  Lord  13olingbroke,°  who 
came  to  us  from  Dawley,  said  as  much ;  and  that  the  men  of 
that  time  were  not  like  those  of  his  youth:  — "Were  your 
father,  madam,"  he  said,  "to  go  into  the  woods,  the  Lidians 


PREFACE  XXVll 

would  elect  him  Sachem°;"  and  his   lordship   was  pleased 
to  call  me  Pocahontas. ° 

I  did  not  see  our  other  relative,  Bishop  Tusher's  Lady,° 
of  whom  so  much  is  said  in  my  papa's  Memoirs  —  although 
my  mamma  went  to  ^dsit  her  in  the  country.  I  have  no  5 
pride  (as  I  showed  by  complying  with  my  mother's  request, 
and  marrying  a  gentleman  who  was  but  the  younger  son  of 
a  Suffolk  Baronet),  yet  I  own  to  a  decent  respect  for  my 
name,  and  wonder  how  one,  who  ever  bore  it,  should  change 
it  for  that  of  Mrs.  Thomas  Tusher.  I  pass  over  as  odious  la 
and  unworthy  of  credit  those  reports  (which  I  heard  in 
Europe,  and  was  then  too  young  to  understand),  how  this 
person,  haxing  left  her  family,  and  fled  to  Paris, °  out  of 
jealousy  of  the  Pretender  betrayed  his  secrets  to  my  Lord 
Stair, °  King  George's  Ambassador,  and  nearly  caused  the  15 
Prince's  death  there;  how  she  came  to  England  and  married 
this  Mr.  Tusher;  and  became  a  great  favourite  of  King 
George  the  Second,  by  whom  Mr.  Tusher  was  made  a  Dean,  and 
then  a  Bishop.  I  did  not  see  the  lady,  who  chose  to  remain 
at  her  palace,  all  the  time  we  were  in  London;  but  after 20 
visiting  her,  my  poor  mamma  said,  she  had  lost  all  her  good 
looks,  and  warned  me  not  to  set  too  much  store  by  any  such 
gifts  which  nature  had  bestowed  upon  me.  She  grew  ex- 
ceedingly stout,  and  I  remember  my  brother's  wife,  Lady 
Castlewood,  saying  —  "No  wonder  she  became  a  favour- 25 
ite,  for  the  King  likes  them  old  and  ugly,  as  his  father 
did  before  him."  On  which  papa  said  —  "All  women  were 
alike;  that  there  was  never  one  so  beautiful  as  that  one; 
and  that  we  could  forgive  her  everything  but  her  beauty." 
And  hereupon  my  mamma  looked  vexed,  and  my  Lord  Castle-  Z^ 
wood  began  to  laugh ;  and  I,  of  course,  being  a  young  creature, 
could  not  understand  what  was  the  subject  of  their  conversa- 
tion. 

After  the  circumstances  narrated  in  the  third  book  of  these 
Memoirs,  my  father  and  mother  both  went  abroad,  being  35 
advised  by  their  friends  to  leave  the  country  in  consequence 
of  the  transactions  which  are  recounted  at  the  close  of  the 
third  volume  of  the  Memoirs.  But  my  brother,  hearing 
how  the  future  Bishop's  lady  had  quitted  Castlewood  and 


xxviii  PREFACE 

joined  the  Pretender  at  Paris,  pursued  him,  and  would  have 
killed  him,  Prince  as  he  was,  had  not  the  Prince  managed 
to  make  his  escape.  On  his  expedition  to  Scotland  directly 
after,  Castlewood  was  so  enraged  against  him  that  he 
5  asked  leave  to  serve  as  a  volunteer  and  join  the  Duke  of 
Argyle's°  army  in  Scotland,  which  the  Pretender  never  had 
the  courage  to  face;  —  and  thenceforth  my  Lord  was  quite 
reconciled  to  the  present  reigning  family,  from  whom  he  hath 
even  received  promotion. 

:o  Mrs.  Tusher  was  by  this  time  as  angry  against  the  Pre- 
tender as  any  of  her  relations  could  be :  and  used  to  boast, 
as  I  have  heard,  that  she  not  only  brought  back"  my  Lord 
to  the  Church  of  England,  but  procured  the  English  peerage 
for  him,  which  the  junior  branch  of  our  family  at    present 

15  enjoys.  She  was  a  great  friend  of  Sir  Robert  Walpole,° 
and  would  not  rest  until  her  husband  slept  at  Laml)oth,° 
my  papa  used  laughing  to  say :  however  the  Bishop  died  of 
apoplexy  suddenly;  and  his  wife  erected  a  great  monument 
over  him :  and  the  pair°  sleep  undc  that  stone  with  a  canopy 

20  of  mar})le  clouds  and  angels  above  them,  the  first  Mrs. 
Tusher  lying  sixty  miles  off  at  Castlewood. 

But  mv  papa's  genius  and  education  are  both  greater 
than  any  a  woman  can  be  expected  (o  have,  and  his  adven- 
tures in  Europe  far  more  exciting  than  his  life  in  this  country, 

25 which  was  past  in  tiie  tranquil  offices  of  love  and  duty; 
and  I  shall  say  no  more  by  way  of  introduction  to  his  Me- 
moirs, noftkeep  my  children  from  the  perusal  of  a  story  which 
is  much  more  interesting  than  that  of  their  affectionate  old 
mother, 

Rachel  Esmond  Warrington. 

Castlewood,  Viroinia, 
November  3,  1778. 


BOOK  I 

THE  EARLY  YOUTH  OF  HENRY  ESMOND,  UP  TO  THE  TIME 
OF  HIS  LEAVING  TRINITY  COLLEGE,^  IN  CAJVIBRIDGE 


THE  HISTORY  OF  HENRY  ESMOND 


BOOK  THE  FIRST 

The  actors  in  the  old  tragedies,  °  as  we  read,  piped  their 
iambics  to  a  tune,  speaking  from  under  a  mask,  and  wearing 
stilts  and  a  great  head-dress.  'Twas  thought  the  dignity 
of  the  Tragick  Muse  required  these  appurtenances  and  that 
she  was  not  to  move  except  to  a  measure  and  cadence.  So  5 
Queen  IMedea  slew  her  children  to  a  slow  musick :  and  King 
Agamemnon  perished  in  a  dying  fall°  (to  use  Mr.  Dry  den's 
words)  :  the  Chorus  standing  by  in  a  set  attitude,  and  rhyth- 
mically and  decorously  bewailing  the  fates  of  those  great 
crowned  persons.  The  Muse  of  History  hath  encumbered  ic 
herself  with  ceremony  as  well  as  her  Sister  of  the  Theatre. 
She  too  wears  the  mask  and  the  cothurnus  and  speaks  to 
m.easure.  She  too,  in  our  age,  busies  herself  with  the  affairs 
only  of  kings ;  waiting  on  them,  obsequiously  and  stately,  as 
if  she  were  but  a  mistress  of  Court  ceremonies,  and  had  noth-  15 
ing  to  do  with  the  regstering  of  the  affairs  of  the  common 
people.  I  have  seen°  in  his  very  old  age  and  decrepitude  the 
old  French  King  Lewis  the  Fourteenth,  °  the  type  and  model 
of  kinghood  —  who  never  moved  but  to  measure,  who  lived 
and  died  according  to  the  laws  of  his  Court-j\Iarshal,  per-  20 
sisting  in  enacting  through  life  the  ^part  of  Hero° ;  and 
divested  of  poetry,  this  Vv^as  but  a  little  ^Tinkled  old  man, 
•  pock-m^arked,  and  with  a  great  perriwig  and  red  heels  to 
make  him  look  tall,  —  a  hero  for  a  book  if  you  like,  or  for  a 
brass  statue  or  a  painted-ceiling,  a  god  in  a  Roman  shape,  25 
but  what  more  than  a  man  for  Madame  Maintenon,  or  the 
barber  who  shaved  him,  or  Monsieur  Fagon,  his  surgeon? 
I  wonder  shall  History  ever  pull  ofl  her  perriwig  and  cease 


2  HENRY  ESMOND 

to  be  court-ridden?  Shall  we  see  something  of  France  and 
England  besides  Versailles  and  Windsor°?  I  saw  Queen 
Anne  at  the  latter  place  tearing  down  the  Park  slopes  after 
her  stag-hounds,  and  driving  her  one-horse  chaise  —  a  hot, 
5  red-faced  woman,  not  in  the  least  resembling  that  statue 
of  her  which  turns  its  stone  back  upon  Saint  Paul's, °  and 
faces  the  coaches  struggling  up  Ludgate  Hill.  She  was 
neither  better  bred  nor  wiser  than  you  and  me,  though  we 
knelt   to   hand   her   a   letter   or   a   washhand-basin.     Why 

10  shall  History  go  on  kneeling  to  the  end  of  time?  I  am  for 
having  her  rise  up  off  her  knees,  and  take  a  natural  posture : 
not  to  be  for  ever  performing  cringes  and  congces°  like  a 
Court-chamberlain,  and  shuffling  backwards  out  of  doors  in 
the  presence  of  the  sovereign.     In  a  word,   I  would  have 

15  History  familiar  rather  than  heroick:  and  think  that  I\Ir. 
Hogarth  and  Mr.  Fielding°  will  give  our  children  a  much 
better  idea  of  the  manners  of  the  present  age  in  England, 
than  the  Court  Gazette'^  and  the  newspapers  which  we  get 
thence. 

20  There  was  a  German  officer  of  Webb's,°  with  whom  we 
used  to  joke,  and  of  whom  a  story  (whereof  I  myself  was 
the  Author)  was  got  to  be  believed  in  the  army,  that  he  was 
eldest  son  of  the  hereditary  Grand  Bootjack  of  the  Empire, 
and  heir  to  that  honour  of  which  his  ancestors  had  been 

25  very  proud,  having  been  kicked  for  twenty  generations 
by  one  imperial  foot,  as  they  drew  the  boot  from  the  other. 
I  have  heard  that  the  old  Lord  Castlewood,  of  part  of  whose 
family  these  present  volumes  are  a  chronicle,  though  he 
came  of  quite  as  good  blood  as  the  Stuarts  whom  he  served 

30  fand  who  as  regards  mere  lineage  are  no  better  than  a  dozen 
r^iiglish  and  Scottish  houses  I  could  name),  was  i)rouder  of 
his  post  about  the  Court  than  of  his  ancestral  honours,  and 
valued  his  dignity  (as  Wai'den  of  the  J3utteries  and  Groom  of 
the  King's  Posset)  so  highly,  that  he  cheerfully  ruined  him- 

35  self  for  the  thankless  and  thriftless  race  who  bestowed  it. 
He  pawned  his  plate  for  King  Charles  the  First, °  mortgagcnl 
his  property  for  the  same  cause,  and  lost  the  greater  part  of 
it  by  fines  and  secjuestration  :  stood  a  siege  of  his  castle  by 
Ireton,°  wheie  his  brother  Thomas  capitulated   (afterward 


HENRY   ESMOND  3 

making  terms  with  the  Commonwealth,  for  which  the  elder 
brother  never  forgave  him),  and  where  his  second  brother 
Edward,  who  had  embraced  the  ecclesiastical  profession, 
was  slain  on  Castlewood  tower,  being  engaged  there  both 
as  preacher  and  artilleryman.  This  resolute  old  loyalist  5 
who  was  with  the  King  whilst  his  house  was  thus  being  bat- 
tered down,  escaped  abroad  with  his  only  son  then  a  boy, 
to  return  and  take  a  part  in  Worcester  fight. °  On  that 
fatal  field  Eustace  Esmond  was  killed,  and  Castlewood  fled 
from  it  once  more  into  exile,  and  henceforward,  and  after  la 
the  Restoration,  never  was  away  from  the  Court  of  the 
monarch  (for  whose  return  we  offer  thanks  in  the  Pi-ayer 
Book)  who  sold  his  country  and  who  took  bribes  of  the 
French  king.° 

What  spectacle  is  more  august  than  that  of  a  great  king  in  15 
exile  ?  Who  is  more  worthy  of  respect  than  a  brave  man  in 
misfortune?  Mr.  Addison  has  painted  such  a  figure  in  his 
noble  piece  of  Cato°  But  suppose  fugitive  Cato  fuddling 
himself  at  a  tavern  with  a  wench  on  each  knee,  a  dozen 
faithful  and  tipsy  comj^anions  of  defeat,  and  a  landlord  20 
calling  out  for  his  bill;  and  the  dignity  of  misfortune  is 
straightway  lost.  The  Historical  Muse  turns  away  shame- 
faced from  the.  vulgar  scene,  and  closes  the  door  —  on  which 
the  exile's  unpaid  drink  is  scored  up  —  upon  him  and  his 
pots  and  his  })ipes,  and  the  tavern-chorus  which  he  and  his  -^s 
friends  are  singing.  Such  a  man  as  Charles  should  have 
had  an  Ostade  or  Mieris°  to  paint  him.  Your  Knellers 
and  Le  Bruns°  only  deal  in  clumsy  and  im.possible  allegories : 
and  it  hath  always  seemed  to  me  blasphemy  to  claim  Olym- 
pus for  such  a  wine-drabbled  divinity  as  that.  30 

x^bout  the  King's  follower,  the  Viscount  Castlewood  — 
orphan  of  his  son,  ruined  by  his  fidelit}^,  bearing  many 
wounds  and  marks  of  bravery,  old  and  in  exile,  his  kinsmen 
I  suppose  should  be  silent ;  nor  if  this  patriarch  fell  down  in 
his  cups,  call  fie  upon  him,  and  fetch  passers-by  to  laugh  35 
at  his  red  face  and  white  hairs.  What  !  does  a  stream  rush 
out  of  a  mountain  free  and  pure,  to  roll  through  fair  pastures, 
to  feed  and  throw  out  bright  tributaries,  and  to  end  in  a 
village  gutter?     Lives  that  have  noble  commencements  havp 


4  HENRY   ESMOND 

often  no  better  endings ;  it  is  not  without  a  kind  of  awe  and 
reverence  that  an  observer  should  speculate  upon  such  careers 
as  he  traces  the  course  of  them.  I  have  seen  too  much  of 
success  in  life  to  take  off  my  hat  and  huzza  to  it,  as  it  passes 

5  in  its  gilt  coach :  and  would  do  my  little  part  with  my  neigh- 
bours on  foot  that  they  should  not  gape  with  too  much 
wonder,  nor  applaud  too  loudly.  Is  it  the  Lord  Mayor° 
going  in  state  to  mince-pies  and  the  Mansion  House  ?  Is  it 
poor  Jack  of  Newgate's  procession, °  with  the   sheriff  and 

to  javelin-men,  conducting  him  on  his  last  journey  to  Tyburrx? 
I  look  into  my  heart  and  think  I  am  as  good  as  my  Lord 
Mayor,  and  know  I  am  as  bad  as  Tyburn  Jack.  Give  me 
a  chain  and  red  gown  and  a  pudding  before  me,  and  I  could 
play  the  part  of  Alderman  very  well,   and  sentence  Jack 

15  after  dinner.  Starve  me,  keep  me  from  books  and  honest 
people,  educate  me  to  love  dice,  gin,  and  pleasure,  and  put 
me  on  Hounslow  Heath,  with  a  purse  before  me,  and  I  will 
take  it.  "And  I  shall  be  deserv^edly  hanged,"  say  you, 
wishing  to  put  an  end   to  this  prosing.     I  don't  say  no.      I 

20  can't  but  accept  the  world  as  I  find  ic,  including  a  rope's 
end,  as  long  as  it  is  in  fashion. 

CHAPTER  I 

AN  ACCOUlfIT  OF  THE  FAMILY  OF  ESMOND  OF  CASTLEWOOD  HALT. 

When  Francis,  fourth  Viscount  Castlewood,  came  to  his 
title,  and  presently  after  to  take  possession  of  his  house  of 
Castlewood,  county  Hants,°  in  the  year  1691,°  almost  the 

25  only  tenant  of  the  place  besides  the  domestics  was  a  lad  of 
twelve  years  of  age,  of  whom  no  one  seemed  to  take  any  note 
until  my  Lady  Viscountess  lighted  upon  him,  going  over  the 
house  with  the  housr^keeper  on  the  day  of  her  arrival.  The 
boy   was  in  the  room  known  as  the  book-room,  or  yellow 

30  gnll'iry,  where  the  {portraits  of  the  famiiy  used  to  hang,  that 
fine  piece  among  others  of  Sir  Antonio  Van  Dyck°  of 
George,  second  ViScount,  and  that  by  Mr.  l>obson°  of  my 
lord  the  thirri   ^'^iscount,  just  deceased,  which  it  seems  his 


HENRY    ESMOND  5 

lady  and  widow  did  not  think  fit  to  carry  away,  when  she 
sent  for  and  carried  off  to  her  house  at  Chelsea°  near  to  Lon- 
don, the  picture  of  herself  by  Sir  Peter  Lely,°  in  which  her 
ladyship  was  represented  as  a  huntress  of  Diana's  court. 

The  new  and  fair  lady  of  Castlewood  found  the  sad  lonely  5 
little  occupant  of  this  gallery  busy  over  his  great  book, 
which  he  laid  down  when  he  was  aware  that  a  stranger  was 
at  hand.  And,  knowing  who  that  person  must  be,  the 
lad  stood  up  and  bowed  before  her,  performing  a  shy 
obeisance  to  the  mistress  of  his  house.  10 

She  stretched  out  her  hand  —  indeed  when  was  it  that  that 
hand  would  not  stretch  out  to  do  an  act  of  kindness,  or  to 
protect  grief  and  ill-fortune?  "And  this  is  our  kinsman,'' 
she  said ;  ''  and  what  is  your  name,  kinsman  ?  " 

"My  name  is  Hemy  Esmond,"  said  the  lad,  looking  up  at  15 
her  in  a  sort  of  delight  and  wonder,  for  she  had  come  upon 
him  as  a  Dca  certe°  and  appeared  the  most  charming  object 
he  had  ever  looked  on.  Her  golden  hair  was  shining  in  the 
gold  of  the  sun;  her  complexion  was  of  a  dazzhng  bloom: 
her  hps  smiling,  and  her  eyes  beaming  with  a  kindness  2c 
which  made  Harry  Esmond's  heart  to  beat  with  surprise. 

"His  name  is  Henry  Esmond,  sure  enough,  my  lady," 
says  J\Irs.  Worksop°  the  housekeeper  (an  old  tyrant  whom 
Henry  Esmond  plagued  more  than  he  hated),  and  the  oid 
gentlewoman  looked  significantly  towards  the  late  lord's  25 
picture,  as  it  now  is  in  the  family,  noble  and  severe-looking, 
with  his  hand  on  his  sword,  and  his  order  on  his  cloak,  which 
he  had  from  the  Emperor  during  the  war  on  the  Danube 
against  the  Turk.° 

Seeing   the   great   and   undeniable   hkeness   between   this  30 
portrait  and  tlie  lad,   the  new  Viscountess,   who  had  still 
hold  of  the  boy's  hand  as  she  looked  at  the  picture,  blushed 
and  dropped  the  hand  quickly,  and  walked  down  the  gallery, 
followed  by  INIrs.  Worksop. 

When  the  lady  came  back,  Harry  Esmond  stood  exactly  3f 
in  the  same  spot,  and  with  his  hand  as  it  had  fallen  when  he 
dropped  it  on  his  black  coat. 

Her  heart  melted  I  suppose  (indeed  she  hath  °  since  owned 
as  much)  at  the  notion  that  she  should  do  anything  unkind 


6  HENRY   ESMOND 

to  any  mortal,  great  or  small ;  for  when  she  returned,  she  haa 
sent  awa}'  the  housekeeper  upon  an  errand  by  the  door  at 
the  farther  end  of  the  gallery ;  and,  coming  back  to  the  lad, 
with  a  look  of  infinite  pity  and  tenderness  in  her  eyes,  she  took 
5  his  hand  again,  placing  her  other  fair  hand  on  his  head,  and 
saying  some  words  to  him,  which  were  so  kind  and  said  in  a 
voice  so  sweet,  that  the  boy,  who  had  never  looked  upon  so 
much  beauty  before,  felt  as  if  the  touch  of  a  superior  being 
or  angel  smote  him  down  to  the  ground,  and  kissed  the  fair 

10  protecting  hand  as  he  knelt  on  one  knee.  To  the  very  last 
hour  of  his  life,  Esmond  remembered  the  lady  as  she  then 
spoke  and  looked,  the  rings  on  her  fair  hands,  the  very  scent 
of  her  robe,  the  beam  of  her  eyes  lighting  up  with  surprise 
and  kindness,  her  lips  blooming  in  a  smile,  the  sun  making  a 

15  golden  halo  round  her  hair. 

As  the  boy  was  yet  in  this  attitude  of  humility,  enters 
behind  him  a  portly  gentleman,  with  a  little  girl  of  four  years 
old  in  his  hand.  The  gentleman  burst  into  a  great  laugh  at 
the  lady  and  her  adorer,  with  his  little  queer  figure,  his  sallow 

20  face,  and  long,  black  hair.  The  lady  blushed,  and  seemed 
to  deprecate  his  ridicule  by  a  look  of  appeal  to  her  husband, 
for  it  was  my  Lord  Viscount  who  now  arrived,  and  whom  the 
lad  knew,  having  once  before  seen  him  in  the  late  lord's 
lifetime. 

25  *'So  this  is  the  little  priest°!"  says  my  lord,  looking  down 
at  the  lad;   "welcome,  kinsman." 

"He  is  saying  his  prayers  to  mamma,"  says  the  little  girl, 
who  came  up  to  her  papa's  knee;  and  my  lord  burst  out 
into  another  great  laugh  at  this,  and  kinsman  Henry  looked 

30  very  silly.  He  invented  a  half-dozen  of  si)eeches  in  reply, 
but  'twas  months  afterwards,  when  he  thought  of  this  adven- 
ture :  as  it  was,  he  had  never  a  word  in  answer. 

"Le  pauvre  enfant,  il  n'a  que  nous,°"  says  the  lady,  looking 
to  her  lord  ;  and  the  boy,  who  understood  her,  though  doubt- 

35  less  she  thought  otherwise^,  thanked  her  with  all  his  heart 
for  her  kind  speech. 

"And  he  shan't  want  for  friends  here,"  says  my  lord,  in  a 
kind  voice,  "shall  he,  little  Trix?" 

The  little  girl,  whose  name  was  lieatrix,  and  whom  her 


HENRY   ESMOND  7 

papa  called  by  this  diminutive,  looked  at  Henry  Esmond 
solemnly,  with  a  pair  of  large  eyes,  and  then  a  smile  shone 
over  her  face,  which  was  as  beautiful  as  that  of  a  cherub, 
and  she  came  up  and  put  out  a  little  hand  to  him.  A  keen 
and  delightful  pang  of  gratitude,  happiness,  affection,  filled  5 
the  orphan  child's  heart,  as  he  received  from  the  protectors, 
whom  Heaven  had  sent  to  him,  these  touching  words  and 
tokens  of  friendliness  and  kindness.  But  an  hour  since  he 
had  felt  quite  alone  in  the  world :  wdien  he  heard  the  great 
peal  of  bells  from  Castlewood  church  ringing  that  morning  to  10 
welcome  the  arrival  of  the  new  lord  and  lady,  it  had  rung 
only  terror  and  anxiety  to  him,  for  he  knew  not  how  the  new 
owner  would  deal  with  him ;  and  those  to  whom  he  formerly 
looked  for  protection  were  forgotten  or  dead.  Pride  and 
doubt  too  had  kept  him  within  doors,  when  the  Vicar  and  the  15 
people  of  the  village,  and  the  servants  of  the  house,  had  gone 
out  to  welcome  my  Lord  Castlewood  —  for  Henry  Esmond 
was  no  servant,  though  a  dependent;  no  relative,  though 
he  bore  the  name  and  inherited  the  blood  of  the  house ;  and 
in  the  midst  of  the  noise  and  acclamations  attending  the  20 
arrival  of  the  new  lord  (for  whom  you  may  be  sure  a  feast 
was  got  ready,  and  guns  were  fired,  and  tenants  and  domes- 
ticks  huzzaed  when  his  carriage  approached  and  rolled 
into  the  courtyard  of  the  hall),  no  one  ever  took  any  notice 
of  young  Harry  Esmond,  who  sate  unobserved  and  alone  in  25 
the  book-room,  until  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  when  his 
new  friends  found  him. 

When  my  lord  and  lady  were  going  awa}^  thence,  the 
little  girl,  still  holding  her  kinsman  by  the  hand,  bade  him 
to  come  too.  "Thou  wilt  always  forsake  an  old  friend  for  a  30 
new  one,  Trix,"  says  her  father  to  her  good-naturedly;  and 
went  into  the  gallery,  giving  an  arm  to  his  lady.  They 
passed  thence  through  the  musick-gallery,  long  since  dis- 
mantled, and  Queen  Elizabeth's  roams°  in  the  clock-tower, 
and  out  into  the  terrace,  where  was  a  fine  prospect  of  sunset,  35 
and  the  great  darkling  woods  with  a  cloud  of  rooks  return- 
ing; and  the  plain  and  river  with  Castlewood  village  beyond, 
and  purple  hills  beautiful  to  look  at  —  and  the  httle  heir 
of  Castlewood,  a  child  of  two  years  old,  was  already  here  on 


8  HENRY   ESMOND 

the  terrace  in  his  nurse's  arms,  from  whom  he  ran  across 
the  grass  instantly  he  perceived  his  mother,  and  carne  to  her. 
''If  thou  canst  not  be  happ}^  here,"  says  my  lord,  looldng 
round  at  the  scene,  ''thou  art  hard  to  please,  Rachel." 
5  ''I  am  happy  where  you  are,"  she  said,  "but  we  were  hap- 
piest of  all  at  Walcote  Forest. °"  Then  my  lord  began  to 
describe  what  was  before  them  to  his  wife,  and  what  indeed 
little  Harry  knew  better  than  he — viz.,  the  history°  of 
the  house :  how  by  yonder  gate  the  page  ran  away  with  the 

10  heiress  of  Castlewood,  by  wdiich  the  estate  came  into  the 
present  family,  how  the  Roundheads°  attacked  the  clock- 
tower,  which  my  lorcl'^  father  was  slain  in  defending.  "  I  was 
but  two  years  old  then,"  says  he,  "but  take  forty-six  from 
ninety,  and  how  old  shall  I  be,  kinsman  Harry  ?  " 

15       "Thirty,"  says  his  wife,  with  a  laugh. 

"A  great  deal  too  old  for  you,  Rachel/'  answers  my  lord, 
looking  fondly  down  at  her.  Indeed  she  seemed  to  be  a 
girl ;  and  was  at  that  time  scarce  twent^^^  years  old. 

"You  know,  Frank,  I  will  do  anything   to  please  you," 

20  says  she,  "and  I  promise  you  I  will  grow  older  every  day." 

"You  mustn't  call  papa  Frank;    you  must  call  papa  my 

lord,  now,"  says  Miss  Beatrix,  with  a  toss  of  her  little  head; 

at  which  the  mother  smiled,  and  the  good-natured  father 

laughed,  and  the  little,  trotting  boy  laughed,  not  knowmg 

25  why  — but  because  he  was  happy  no  doubt  —  as  everyone 
seemed  to  be  there.  How  those  trivial  incidents  and  words, 
the  landscape  and  sunshine,  and  the  grc-up  of  people  smiling 
and  talking,  remain  fixed  on  the  memovy°  ! 

As  the  sun  was  setting,  the  Uttle  heir  ^vac  sent  in  the  arms 

30  of  his  nurse  to  bed,  whither  he  went  howling;  but  little 
Trix  was  promised  to  sit  to  supper  that  night  —  "and  you 
will  come  too,  kinsman,  won't  you?"  she  said. 

Harry  Esmond  blushed:  "I  —  I  have  supi)er  with  Mrs. 
VVorks»)p,"  says  he. 

3;       "  1) n  it,"  says  my  lord,  "  thou  siialt  sup  with  us,  Harry, 

to-night.  Shan't  refuse  a  lady,  shall  he,  Trix?"  —  and  they 
<m11  wondered  at  Harry's  performance  as  a  trenchor-man°; 
in  which  character  the  poor  boy  acj^uitted  himself  very 
remarkably,  for  the  truth  is  he  had  had  no  dinner,  nobody 


HENRY   ESMOND  9 

thinking  of  him   in   the   bustle   which   the   house   was    in, 
during  the  preparations  antecedent  to  the  new  lord's  arrival. 

"No  dinner!  poor  dear  child!"  says  my  lady,  heaping 
up  his  plate  with  meat,  and  my  lord,  filling  a  bumper  for 
him,  bade  him  call  a  health ;  on  which  Master  Harry,  crying  5 
"The  King,''  tossed  off  the  wine.  My  lord  was  ready  to 
drink  that,  and  most  other  toasts,  indeed  only  too  ready. 
He  would  not  hear  of  Doctor  Tusher  (the  Vicar  of  Castlewood, 
who  came  to  supper)  going  away  w^hen  the  sweet mv^ats 
were  brought :  he  had  not  had  a  chaplain  long  enough,  he  la 
said,  to  be  tired  of  him ;  so  his  reverence  kept  my  lord  com- 
pany for  some  hours  over  a  pipe  and  a  punchbowl ;  and 
went  away  home  with  rather  a  reeling  gait,  and  declaring  a 
dozen  of  times,  that  his  lordship's  affability  surpassed  CA'ery 
kindness  he  had  ever  had  from  his  lordship's  gracious  famil)'.  15 

As  for  young  Esmond,  when  he  got  to  his  little  chamber, 
it  was  with  a  heart  full  of  surprise  and  gratitude  towards 
the  new  friends  whom  this  happy  day  had  brought  him^  He 
was  up  and  watching  long  before  the  house  was  astir,  longing 
to  see  that  fair  lady  and  her  children  —  that  kind  protector  20 
and  patron;  and  only  fearful  lest  their  welcome  of  the  past 
night,  should  in  any  way  be  withdrawn  or  altered.  But 
presently  httle  Beatrix  came  out  into  the  garden;  and  her 
mother  followed,  w^ho  greeted  Harry  as  kindly  as  before. 
He  told  her  at  greater  length  the  histories  of  the  house  25 
(which  he  had  been  taught  in  the  old  lord's  time),  and  to 
which  she  listened  with  great  interest ;  and  then  he  told  her, 
with  lespect  to  the  night  before,  that  he  understood  French; 
and  thanked  her  for  her  protection. 

"Do  you?"  says  she,  with  a  blush;  "then,  sir,  you  shall  3^ 
teach  me  and  Beatrix."     And  she  asked  him  many  more 
ciuestions  regarding  himself,  which  had  best  be  told  more 
fully  and  explicitly  than  in  those  brief  replies  which  the  lad 
made  to  his  mistress's  questions. 


10  HENRY  ESMOND 


CHAPTER  II 

RELATES   HOW   FRANCIS,    FOURTH  VISCOUNT,   ARRIVES   AT 
CASTLEWOOD 

Tis  known  that  the  name  of  Esmond  and  the  estate  of 
Castlewood,  com.  Hants,  came  into  possession  of  the  present 
family  through  Dorothea,  daughter  and  heiress  of  Edward, 
Earl  and  Marquis  of  Esmond,  and  Lord  of  Castlewood, 
S  which  lady  married,  23  Eliz.,°  Henry  Poyns,  gent.°;  the 
said  Henry  being  then  a  page  in  the  household  of  her  father. 
Francis,  son  and  heir  of  the  above  Henry  and  Dorothea, 
who  took  the  maternal  name  which  the  family  hath  borne 
subsequently,    was    made    Knight    and    Baronet    by    King 

^0  James  the  First°;  and  being  of  a  military  disposition,  re- 
mained long  in  Germany  with  the  Elector  Palatine, °  in  whose 
service  Sir  Francis  incurred  both  expense  and  danger,  lending 
large  sums  of  money  to  that  unfortunate  Prince;  and  re- 
ceiving many  wounds   in  battles  against  the   Imperialists, 

15  in  which  Sir  Francis  engaged. 

On  his  roturn  home  Sir  Francis  was  rewarded  for  his  ser- 
vices and  many  sacrifices,  by  his  late  Majesty  James  the 
First,  who  graciously  conferred  upon  this  tried  servant 
the  post  of   Warden  of  the   Butteries,   and   Groom  of  the 

20  King's  Posset,  which  high  and  confidential  office  he  filled 
in  that  king's,  and  his  unhappy  successor's,  reign. 

His  age  and  many  wounds  and  infirmities,  obliged  Sir 
Francis  to  p3rform  much  of  his  duty  by  deputy;  and  his 
son,  Sir  George  Esmond,  knight  and  banneret, °  first  as  his 

^5  father's  lieutenant,  and  afterwards  as  inheritor  of  his  father's 
title  and  dignity,  performed  this  office  during  almost  the 
whole  of  the  reign  of  King  Charles  the  First,  and  his  two 
sons  who  suf!cecded  him. 

Sir  George  Esmond  man-iful  rather  beneath  the  rank  that  a 

30  person  of  his  name  and  honour  might  aspire  to,  the  daughter 
of  Thomas  Topham  of  the  city  of  London,  Alderman  and 
Goldsmith,  wlio,  taking  the  Parliamentary  side  in  the  troubles 
then  commencing,  disajjpointed  Sir  George  of  the  property 


HENRY   ESMOND  11 

which  he  expected  at  the  demise  of  his  father-in-law,  who 
devised  his  money  to  his  second  daughter,  Barbara,  a  spinster. 

Sir  George  Esmond,  on  his  part,  w^as  conspicuous  for  his 
attachment  and  loyalty  to  the  Royal  cause  and  person,  and 
the  King  being  at  Oxford, °  in  1642,  Sir  George,  with  the  5 
consent  of  his  father,  then  very  aged  and  infirm,  and  residing 
at  his  house  of  Castlewood,  melted  the  whole  of  the  family 
plate  for  his  Majesty^s  service. 

For  this  and  other  sacrifices  and  merits,  his  Majesty,  by 
patent  under  the  Privy  Seal,  dated  Oxford,  Jan.,  1643,  lo 
w^as  pleased  to  advance  Sir  Francis  Esmond  to  the  dignity 
of  Viscount  Castlewood,  of  Shandon,  in  Ireland :  and  the 
Viscount's  estate  being  much  impoverished  by  loans  to  the 
King,  which  in  those  troublesome  times  his  j\Iajesty  could 
not  repay,  a  grant  of  land  in  the  plantations  of  Virginia"  was  i; 
given  to  the  Lord  Viscount;  part  of  which  land  is  in  pos- 
session of  descendants  of  his  family  to  the  present  day. 

The  first  Viscount  Castlewood  died  full  of  years,  and  within 
a  few  months  after  he  had  been  advanced  to  his  honours. 
He  was  succeeded  by  his  eldest  son,  the  before-named  George  20 
and  left  issue  besides,  Thomas,  a  colonel  in  the  King's  army, 
that  afterward  joined  the  Usurper's"  government;  and 
Francis,  in  holy  orders,  wdio  was  slain  whilst  defending  the 
house  of  Castlewood  against  the  Parhament,°  anno  1647. 

George  Lord  Castlew^ood   (the  second  Viscount)   of  King  25 
Charles  the  First's  time,  had  no  male  issue  save  his  one  son 
Eustace  Esmond,  who  w^as  killed,  with  half  of  the  Castlewood 
men   beside   him,   at   Worcester    fight.      The    lands    about 
Castlewood   were    sold   and   apportioned    to    the    Common- 
wealth men;    Castlewood  being  concerned  in  almost  all  of  30 
the  plots  against  the  Protector,  after  the  death  of  the  King, 
and  up  to  King  Charles  the  Second's  restoration.     My  lord 
followed  that  king's  Court  about  in  its  exile,  having  ruined 
himself  in  its  service.     He  had  but  one  daughter,  who  w^as 
of  no  great  comfort  to  her  father;    for  misfortune  had  not  35 
taught  those  exiles  sobriety  of  life ;    and  it  is  said  that  the 
Duke  of  York°  and  his  brother  the  King  both  ciuarrelled 
about   Isabel   Esmond.     She   was   maid   of   honour   to   the 
Queen  Henrietta  Maria° ;  she  early  joined  the  Roman  Church ; 


12  HENRY   ESMOND 

her  father,  a  weak  man,   following  her  not  long  after  at 
Breda.  ° 

On  the  death  of  Eustace  Esmond  at  Worcester,  Thomas 
Esmond,  nephew  to  my  Lord  Castle  wood,  and  then  a  stripling, 
5  became  heir  to  the  title.  His  father  had  taken  the  Parlia- 
ment side  in  the  quarrels,  and  so  had  been  estranged  from  the 
cliief  of  his  house;  and  my  Lord  Castlewood  was  at  first  so 
much  enraged  to  think  that  his  title  (albeit  little  more  than 
an  empty  one  now)  should  pass  to  a  rascally  Roundhead, 

10  that  he  would  have  married  again,  and  indeed  proposed  to 
do  so  to  a  vintner's  daughter  at  Bruges, °  to  whom  his  lordship 
owed  a  score  for  lodging  when  the  King  was  there,  but  for 
fear  of  the  la.ughter  of  the  Court,  and  the  anger  of  his  daughter, 
of  whom  he  stood  in  awe ;  for  she  was  in  temper  as  imperious 

15  and  violent  as  my  lord,  who  was  much  enfeebled  by  wounds 
and  drimang,  was  weak. 

Lord  Castlewood  would  have  had  a  match  between  this 
daughter  Isabel  and  ner  cousin,  the  son  of  that  Francis 
E'smond  who  was  killed  at  Castlewood  siege.     And  the  lady, 

20  it  was  said,  took  a  fancy  to  the  young  man,  who  was  her 
juxiior  by  several  years  (which  circumstance  she  did  not  con- 
sider to  be  a  fault  in  him) ;  but  having  paid  his  court,  and 
being  admitted  to  the  intimacy  of  the  house,  he  suddenly 
flung  up  his  suit,  when  it  seemed  to  be  pretty  prosj^erous, 

25  V/ithout  gi"/irig  a  pretext  for  his  behaviour.  His  friends 
rallied  him  at  what  they  laughingly  chose  to  call  his  infidelity ; 
J?ck  Ciiui^cii*U,°  Frant  Esmond's  lieutenant  in  the  Royal 
re&imen^  of  toot-guards,  getting  the  company  which  Esmond 
V93ated,  when  he  left  the  Court  and  Avent  to  Tangier  in  a 

30  rag-e  at  discovering  that  his  promotion  depended  on  the 
ccn?piaisance  of  his  elderly  affianced  bride.  He  and  Churchill, 
whD  nad  bet;n  condiscipuli°  at  St.  Paul's  School,  had  words 
about  this  mattei- ;  and  Frank  Esmond  said  to  him,  with  an 
oatn   "Jack^  your  sister  may  be  so-and-so,  but  by  Jove  my 

35  wift  shan't!^  and  swords  were  drawn,  and  blood  drawn  too, 
until  mends  separated  them  on  this  quarrel.  Few  men 
were  so  jealous  about  the  point  of  honour  in  those  days; 
and  gentlemen  of  good  birth  and  lineage  thought  a  Royal 
blot  was  an  ornament  to  their  family  coat.     Frank  Esmond 


HENRY  ESMOND  13 

retired  in  the  sulks,  first  to  Tangier,  °  whence  he  returned 
after  two  years'  service,  settling  on  a  small  property  he  had 
of  his  mother,  near  to  Winchester,  °  and  became  a  country 
gentleman,  and  kept  a  pack  of  beagles, °  and  never  came  to 
Court  again  in  King  Charles's  time.°  But  his  uncle  Castle-  5 
wood  was  never  reconciled  to  him ;  nor,  for  some  time  after- 
ward, his  cousin  whom  he  had  refused. 

By  places,  pensions,  bounties  from  France,  and  gifts  from 
the  King,  whilst  his  daughter  was  in  favour.  Lord  Castle- 
wood,  who  had  spent  in  the  Royal  ser\4ce  his  youth  and  ic 
fortune,  did  not  retrieve  the  latter  quite,  and  never  cared 
to  visit  Castle  wood,  or  repair  it,  since  the  death  of  his  son, 
but  managed  to  keep  a  good  house,  and  figure  at  Court,  and 
to  save  a  considerable  sum  of  ready  money. 

And  now,  his  heir  and  nephew,  Thomas  Esmond,  began  to  15 
bid  for  his  uncle's  favour.     Thomas  had  served  with  the 
Emperor,  and  with  the  Dutch,  when  King  Charles  was  com- 
pelled to  lend  troops  to  the  States ;  and  against  them,  when 
bis  Majesty  made  an  alliance^  with  the  French  King.     In 
•these    campaigns   Thomas  Esmond  was  more  remarked  for  20 
duellhig,  brawling,  vice  and  play,  than  for  any  conspicuous 
gallantry  in  the  field,  and  came  back  to  England,  hke  many 
another  English  gentleman  who  has  travelled,  with  a  char- 
acter by  no  means  improved  by  his  foreign  experience.     He 
had  dissipated  his  small  paternal  inheritance  of  a   younger  25 
brother's  portion,  and,  as  truth  must  be  told,  was  no  better 
than  a  hangea'-on  of  ordinaries, °  and  a  brawler  about  Alsatia^ 
and  the    Friars,  when   he    bethought    him    of   a   means   of 
mending  his  fortune. 

His  cousin  was  now  of  more  than  middle  age  and  had  3° 
nobody's  word  but  her  own  for  the  beauty  which  she  said 
she  once  possessed.  She  was  lean,  and  yellow,  and  long  in 
the  tooth;  all  the  red  and  white  in  all  the  toy-shops  of 
London  could  not  make  a  beauty  of  her  —  ]\Ir.  Kinigrew° 
called  her  the  Sybil,  the  death's-head  put  up  at  the  King's  35 
feast  as  a  memento  mori°  etc.  —  in  fine,  a  woman  who  might 
be  easy  of  conciuest,  but  whom  onh^  a  very  bold  man  would 
think  of  conquering.  This  bold  man  was  Thomas  Esmond. 
He  had  a  fancy  to  my  Lord  Castle  wood's  savings,  the  amount 


14  HENRY   ESMOND 

of  which  rumour  had  very  much  exaggerated.  Madame 
Isabel  was  said  to  ha^-e  Royal  jewels  of  great  value ;  whereas 
poor  Tom  Esmond's  last  coat  but  one  was  in  pawn. 

j\Iy  lord  had  at  this  time  a  fine  house  in  Lincoln's-Inn- 
5  Fields, °  nigh  to  the  Duke's  Theatre  and  the  Portugal  ambas- 
sador's chapel.  Tom  Esmond,  who  had  frequented  the  one 
as  long  as  he  had  money  to  spend  among  the  actresses,  now 
came  to  the  chufch  as  assiduously.  He  looked  so  lean  and 
shabby,  that  he  passed  without  difficulty  for  a  repentant 

10  sinner;  and  so,  becoming  converted,  you  may  be  sure  took 
his  uncle's  priest  for  a  director. 

This  charitable  father  reconciled  him  with  the  old  lord  his 
uncle,  who  a  short  time  before  would  not  speak  to  him,  as  Tom 
passed  under  my  lord's  coach  window,  his  lordship  going  irt 

15  state  to  his  place  at  Court,  while  his  nephew  slunk  by  with 
his  battered  hat  and  feather,  and  the  point  of  his  rapier 
sticking  out  of  the  scabbard  —  to  his  twopenny  ordinary 
in  BcU  Yard.° 

Thomas  Esmond,  after  his  reconciliation  with  his  uncle, 

20  vjery  soon  began  to  grow  sleek,  and  to  show  signs  of  the 
benefits  of  good  living  and  clean  lineil.  He  fasted  rigorously 
twice  a  week  to  be  sure ;  but  he  made  amends  on  the  other 
days :  and,  to  show  how  great  his  appetite  was,  Mr.  W3a'her- 
ley  said,  he  ended  by  swallowing  that  fly-blown    rank  old 

25  morsel  his  cousin.  There  were  endless  jokes  and  lampoons 
about  this  marriage  at  Court :  but  Tom  rode  thither  in  his 
uncle's  coach  now,  called  him  father,  and  having  won  could 
afford  to  laugh.  This  marriage  took  place  very  shortly  be- 
fore King  Charles  dicd° :   whom  the  Viscount  of  Castle  wood 

30  speculily  followed. 

The  issue  of  this  marriage  was  one  son ;  whom  the  parents 
watched  with  an  intense  eagerness  and  care;  but  who,  in 
spite  of  nurses  and  physicians,  had  only  a  brief  existence. 
His  tainted  l)lood  did  not  run  very  long  in  his  j)oor  feeble 

35  little  body.  Symptoms  of  evil  broke  out  early  on  him ;  and, 
part  from  flattery,  part  superstition,  nothing  would  satisfy 
ny  lord  and  lady,  especially  tlic  latter,  but  having  the  poor 
little  cripple  touched  by  his  Majesty"  at  his  church.  They 
were    ready  to  cry  out    miracle  at    first  (the    doctors   and 


HENRY   ESMOND  15 

quack-salvers  being  constantly  in  attendance  on  the  child, 
and  experimenting  on  his  poor  little  body  with  every  con- 
ceivable nostrum)  —  but  though  there  seemed  from  some 
reason  a  notable  amelioration  in  the  infant's  health  after 
his  Majesty  touched  him,  in  a  few  weeks  afterward  the  poor  5 
thing  died  —  causing  the  lampooners  of  the  Court  to  say  that 
the  King  in  expelling  evil  out  of  the  infant  of  Tom  Esmond 
and  Isabella  his  wife,  expelled  the  life  out  of  it,  which  was 
nothing  but  corruption. 

The  mother's  natural  pang  at  losing  this  poor  little  child  ic 
must  have  been  increased  when  she  thought  of  her  rival 
Fi-ank  Esmond's  wife,  who  w^as  a  favourite  of  the  whole 
Court,  where  my  poor  Lady  Castlewood  was  neglected,  and 
who  had  one  child,  a  daughter,  flourishing  and  beautiful,  and 
was  about  to  become  a  mother  once  more.  15 

The  Court,  as  I  have  heard,  only  laughed  the  more  because 
the  poor  lady,  who  had  pretty  well  passed  the  age  when 
ladies  are  accustomed  to  have  children,-  nevertheless  deter- 
mined not  to  give  hope  up,  and  even  when  she  came  to  live 
at  Castlewood,  was  constantly  sending  over  to  Hexton°  for  20 
the  doctor,  and  announcing  to  her  friends  the  arrival  of  an 
heir.  This  absurdity  of  hers  was  one  amongst  many  others 
which  the  wags  used  to  play  upon.  Indeed,  to  the  last  days 
of  her  life,  my  Lady  Mscountess  had  the  comfort  of  fancying 
herself  beautiful,  and  persisted  in  blooming  up  to  the  very  25 
midst  of  winter,  painting  roses  on  her  cheeks  long  after 
their  natural  season,  and  attiring  herself  like  summer  though 
her  head  was  covered  with  snow. 

Gentlemen  who  were  about  the  Court  of  King  Charles,  and 
King  James,  have  told  the  present  writer  a  number  of  stories  3^ 
about  this  cjueer  old  lady,  with  which  it's  not  necessary  that 
posterity  should  be  entertained.  She  is  said  to  have  had 
great  powers  of  invective;  and  if  she  fought  with  all  her 
rivals  in  King  James's  favour,  'tis  certain  she  must  have 
had  a  vast  number  of  quarrels  on  her  hands.  She  was  a  35 
woman  of  an  intrepid  spirit,  and  it  appears  pursued  and 
rather  fatigued  his  ]\Iajesty  with  her  rights  and  her  wrongs. 
Some  say  that  the  cause  of  her  leaving  Court  was  jealousy  of 
Frank  Esmond's  wife :  others  that  she  was  forced  to  retreat 


16  HENRY   ESMOND 

after  a  great  battle  which  took  place  at  Whitehall,  °  between 
her  ladyship  and  Lady  Dorchester, °  Tom  KiUigrew's  daughter, 
whom  the  King  delighted  to  honour,  and  in  which  that  ill- 
favoured  Esther °  got  the  better  of  our  elderly  Vashti.  But 
5  her  ladyship  for  her  part  always  averred  that  it  was  her 
husband's  quarrel,  and  not  her  own,  which  occasioned  the 
banishment  of  the  two  into  the  country;  and  the  cruel 
nigratitude  of  the  Sovereign  in  giving  away,  out  of  the  family, 
that  place  of  Warden  of  the  Butteries,  and  Groom  of  the 

10  King's  Posset,  which  the  two  last  Lords  Castle  wood  had 
held  so  honourably,  and  which  was  now  conferred  upon  a 
fellow  of  yesterday,  and  a  hanger-on  of  that  odious  Dor- 
chester creature,  my  Lord  Bergamot;^  ''I  never,"  said  my 
lady,  "could  have  come  to  see  his  Majesty's  posset  carried  by 

15  any  other  hand  than  an  Esmond.  I  should  have  dashed 
the  salver  out  of  Lord  Bergamot's  hand,  had  I  met  him." 
And  those  who  knew  her  ladyship  are  aware  that  she  was  a 
person  quite  capable  of  performing  tliis  feat  had  she  not 
wisely  kept  out  of  the  way. 

20  Holding  the  purse-strings  in  her  own  control,  to  which, 
indeed,  she  liked  to  bring  most  persons  who  came  near  her, 
Lady  Castlewood  could  command  her  husband's  obedience, 
and  so  broke  up  ner  establishment  at  London ;  she  had  re- 
moved from  Lincoln 's-Inn-Fields  to  Chelsea,  to  a  prett}^  new 

25  house  she  bought  there ;  and  brought  her  establishment,  her 
maids,  lajD-dogs  and  gentlewomen,  her  priest,  and  his  lord- 
ship her  husband  to  Castlewood  Hall  that  she  had  never 
seen  since  she  quitted  it  as  a  child  with  her  father  diu-ing 
the  troubles  of  King  Charles  the  First's  reign.     The  walls 

30  were  still  open  in  the  old  house  as  they  had  been  left  by  the 
shot  of  the  Commonwealth  men.  A  part  of  the  mansion 
was  restored  and  fur})ished  up  with  the  plate,  hangings, 
amd   furniture,    brought   from   the   house   in    London.     My 

1  Lionel  Tipton,  created  Baron  Rergauiot  ann.  1086,  Gentleman 
Usher  of  the  liack  Stairs,  and  afterwards  appointed  Warden  of  the 
HutterieH  and  Groom  of  the  King's  Posset,  (on  the  decease  of  George, 
second  Viscount  ('astlewood),  accompanied  his  Majesty  to  St.  Ger- 
main's,°  where  he  died  without,  issiwe.  No  Groom  of  the  Poaset  was 
appointed  b}'  the  Prince  of  ()ratige,°  nor  hath  there  been  such  an 
officer  in  any  succeeding  reign. 


HENRY  ESMOND  17 

lady  meant  to  have  a  triumphal  entry  into  Castlewood 
village,  and  expected  the  people  to  cheer  as  she  drove  over 
the  Green  in  her  great  coach,  my  lord  beside  her,  her  gentle- 
women, lap-dogs,  and  cockatoos, °  on  the  opposite  seat, 
six  horses  to  her  carriage,  and  servants  armed  and  mounted,  5 
following  it  and  preceding  it.  But  'twas  in  the  height  of 
the  No-Popery  cry°;  the  folks  in  the  village  and  the  neigh- 
bouring town  were  scared  by  the  sight  of  her  ladyship's 
painted  face  and  eyelids,  as  she  bobbed  her  head  out  of  the 
coach-window,  meaning  no  doubt  to  be  very  gracious;  and  ic 
one  old  woman  said,  "Lady  Isabel!  lord-a-mercy,  it's  Lady 
Jezebel !  "  a  name  by  which  the  enemies  of  the  right  honour- 
able Viscountess  were  afterwards  in  the  habit  of  designating 
her.  The  country  was  then  in  a  great  Xo-Popery  fervour ; 
her  ladyship's  known  conversion,  and  her  husband's,  the  15 
priest  in  her  train,  and  the  service  performed  at  the  chapel  of 
Castlewood -(though  the  chapel  had  been  built  for  that  wor- 
ship before  any  other  was  heard  of  in  the  country,  and  though 
the  service  was  performed  in  the  most  Cjuiet  manner),  got 
her  no  favour  at  first  in  the  county  or  village.  By  far  the  20 
greater  part  of  the  estate  of  Castlewood  had  been  confis- 
cated, and  been  parcelled  out  to  Commonwealth  men.  One 
or  two  of  these  old  Cromwellian  soldiers  were  still  alive  in 
the  village,  and  looked  grimly  at  first  upon  my  Lady  Ms- 
countess,  when  she  came  to  dwell  there.  25 

She  appeared  at  the  Hexton  Assembly,  bringing  her  lord 
after  her,  scaring  the  country  folks  with  the  splendour  of 
her  diamonds,  which  she  always  wore  in  public.  They 
said  she  wore  them  in  private,  too,  and  slept  with  them 
round  her  neck ;  though  the  writer  can  pledge  his  word  that  30 
this  was  a  calumny.  "If  she  were  to  take  them  off,"  my 
Lady  Sark  said,  "  Tom  Esmond,  her  husband,  would  run  away 
with  them  and  pawn  them."  Twas  another  calunmy. 
My  Lady  Sark  w^as  also  an  exile  from  Court,  and  there  had 
been  war  between  the  two  ladies  before.  35 

The  village  people  began  to  be  reconciled  presently  to  their 
lady,  who  was  generous  and  kind,  though  fantastic  and 
haughty,  in  her  ways;  and  whose  praises  Dr.  Tiisher,  the 
Vicar,  sounded  loudly  amongst  his  flock.     As  for  my  lord, 


18  HENRY  ESMOND 

he  gave  no  great  trouble,  being  considered  scarce  more  than 
an  appendage  to  m}^  lady,  who,  as  daughter  of  the  old  lords 
of  Castlewood,  and  possessor  of  vast  wealth,  as  the  country 
folks  said  (though  indeed  nine-tenths  of  it  existed  but  in  ru- 
5  mour),  was  looked  upon  as  the  real  queen  of  the  Castle,  and 
mistress  of  all  it  contained. 


CHAPTER  III 

WHITHER    IN    THE    TIME    OF   THOMAS,    THIRD   VISCOUNT,    I    HAD 
PRECEDED   HIM,    AS    PAGE   TO    ISABELLA 

Coming  up  to  London  again  some  short  time  after  this 
retreat,  the  Lord  Castlewood  dispatched  a  retainer  of  his 
to  a  little  cottage  in  the  village  of  Ealing,  near  to  London, 

10  where  for  some  time  had  dwelt  an  old  French  refugee,  by 
name  Mr.  Pastoureau,  one  of  those  whom  the  persecution 
of  the  Huguenots"  by  the  French  king  had  brought  over  to 
this  country.  With  this  old  man  lived  a  little  lad,  who  went 
by  the  name  of  Henry  Thomas.     He  remembered  to  have 

15  lived  in  another  place  a  short  time  before,  near  to  London  too, 
amongst  looms  and  spinning-wheels,  and  a  great  deal  of 
psalm-singing  and  church-going,  and  a  whole  colony  of 
Frenchmen. 

There  he  had  a  dear,  dear  friend,  who  died,  and  whom  he 

20  called  Aunt.  She  used  to  visit  him  in  his  dreams  some- 
times; and  her  face,  though  it  was  homeh^,  was  a  thousand 
times  dearer  to  him  than  that  of  Mrs.  Pastoureau,  l^on  Papa° 
Pastoureau's  new  wife,  who  came  to  live  with  him  after 
aunt  went  away.     And  there,  at  Spittlefields,  as  it  used  to 

25  be  called,  lived  Uncle  George,  who  was  a  weaver  too,  but 
used  to  tell  Harry  that  he  was  a  little  gentleman,  and  that 
his  father  was  a  captain,  and  his  mother  an  angel. 

When  he  said  so,  Bon  Papa  used  to  look  uj)  from  the  loom, 
where  he  was  embroidering  beautiful  silk  flowers,  and  say, 

30  "Angel!  she  belongs  to  the  J^abylonish  scarlet  woman. ° " 
Hon  Papa  was  always  talking  of  the  scarlet  woman.  He 
had  a  little  room  where  he  always  used  to  preach  and  sing 


HENRY   ESMOND  19 

h3'mns  out  of  his  great  old  nose.  Little  Harry  did  not  like 
the  preaching;  he  liked  better  the  fine  stories  which  aunt 
used  to  tell  him.  Bon  Papa's  wife  never  told  him  pretty 
stories ;  she  quarrelled  with  Uncle  George,  and  he  went  away. 

After  this  Harrj-'s  Bon  Papa,  and  his  wife  and  two  children  5 
of  her  own  that  she  brought  with  her,  came  to  live  at  Ealing. 
The  new  wife  gave  her  children  the  best  of  everything,  and 
Harry  many  a  whipping,  he  knew  not  why.     Besides  blows, 
he  got  ill-names  from  her,  which  need  not  be  set  down  here, 
for  the  sake  of  old  Mr.  Pastoureau,  who  was  still  kind  some-  10 
times.       The  unhappiness  of  those  days  is  long  forgiven, 
though  they  cast  a  shade  of  melancholy  over  the  child's 
youth,  which  will  accompany  him,  no  doubt,  to  the  end  of 
his  days :  as  those  tender  twigs  are  bent  the  trees  grow  after- 
ward;  and  he,  at  least,  who  has  suffered  as  a  child,  and  15 
is  not  quite  perverted  in  that  early  school  of  unhappiness, 
learns  to  be  gentle  and  long-suffering  with  little  children. 

Harry  was  very  glad  when  a  gentleman  dressed  in  black, 
on  horseback,  with  a  mounted  servant  behind  him,  came 
to  fetch  him  away  from  Ealing.  The  noverca,  or  unjust  20 
stepmother,  who  had  neglected  him  for  her  own  two  chil- 
dren, gave  him  supper  enough  the  night  before  he  went 
away,  and  plenty  in  the  morning.  She  did  not  beat  him 
once,  and  told  the  children  to  keep  their  hands  off  him. 
One  was  a  girl,  and  Harry  never  could  bear  to  strike  a  girl,  25 
and  the  other  was  a  boy,  whom  he  could  easily  have  beat, 
but  he  always  cried  out,  when  Mrs.  Pastoureau  came  sailing 
to  the  rescue  with  arms  like  a  flail.  She  onl}-  washed  Harry's 
face  the  day  he  went  away ;  nor  ever  so  much  as  once  boxed 
his  ears.  She  whimpered  rather  when  the  gentleman  in  30 
black  came  for  the  boy :  and  old  Mr.  Pastoureau,  as  he  ga"\'e 
the  child  his  blessing,  scowled  over  his  shoulder  at  the  strange 
gentleman,  and  grumbled  out  something  about  BaMdon 
and  the  scarlet  lady.  He  was  grown  quite  old,  like  a  child 
almost.  Mrs.  Pastoureau  used  to  wipe  his  nose  as  she  did  35 
to  the  children.  She  was  a  great,  big,  handsome  young 
woman;  but  though  she  pretended  to  cry,  Harry  thought 
'twas  only  a  sham,  and  sprung  quite  delighted  upon  the 
horse  ujDon  which  the  lacquey  helped  him. 


20  HENRY  ESMOND 

He  was  a  Frenchman,  his  name  was  Blaise.  The  chill 
could  talk  to  him  in  his  own  language  perfectly  well :  he 
knew  it  better  than  Enghsh  indeed,  having  lived  hitherto 
chiefly  among  French  people :  and  being  called  the  little 
5  Frenchman  by  other  boys  on  Ealing  Green.  He  soon 
learnt  to  speak  English  perfectly,  and  to  forget  some  of  his 
French:  children  forget  easily,  ^rome  earlier  and  fainter 
recollections  the  child  had,  of  a  different  country;  and  a 
town  with  tall  white  houses;    and  a  ship.     But  these  were 

lo  quite  indistinct  in  the  boy's  mind,  as,  indeed,  the  memory  of 

Ealing  soon  became,  at  least  of  much  that  he  suffered  there. 

The  lacquey  before  whom  he  rode  was  verj^^  lixeiy  and 

voluble,  and  informed  the  boy  that  the  gentleman  riding 

before  him  was  my  lord's  Chaplain,  Father  Holt,°  that  he 

15  was  now  to  be  called  Master  Harry  Esmond,  that  my  Lord 
Viscount  Castle  wood  was  his  parrairi,  that  he  was  to  live  at 

the  great  house  of  Castlewood,  in  the  province  of shire, 

where  he  would  see  Madame  the  Viscountess,  who  was  a 
grand  lady,  and  so,  seated  on  a  cloth  before  Blaise's  saddle, 

20  Hany  Esmond  was  brought  to  London,  and  to  a  fine  square 
called  Co  vent  Garden,  near  to  which  his  patron  lodged. 

Mr.  Holt  the  priest  took  the  child  by  the  hand,  and  brought 
him  to  this  nobleman,  a  grand  languid  nobleman  in  a  great 
cap  and  flowered  morning-gown,  sucking  oranges.    He  patted 

25  Harry  on  the  head  and  gave  him  an  orange. 

"C'est  bien  9a,"  he  said  to  the  priest  after  eyeing  the  child, 
and  the  gentleman  in  black  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

Let  Blaise  take  him  out  for  a  holyday,  and  out  for  a  holy- 
day  tlie  boy  and  the  valet  went.     Harry  went  jumping  along, 

30  he  was  glad  enough  to  go. 

He  win  remember  to  his  life's  end  the  delights  of  those 
days.  He  was  taken  to  see  a  play  by  Monsieur  Blaise,  in  a 
house  a  thousand  times  greater  and  finer  tha.n  the  booth  at 
Ealing  Fair  —  and  on  the  next  hapj)y  day  they  took  water 

35  on  the  river, °  and  Harry  saw  London  Bridge, °  with  the 
houses  and  bookseUers'  shops  thereon,  looking  like  a  street, 
and  the  Tower°  of  London,  with  the  annour,  and  the  great 
lions  iu\(\  bears  in  the  moats  —  all  under  company  of  Mon- 
sieur Jilaise. 


E1UNRY   ESMOND  21 

Presently,  of  an  early  morning,  all  the  party  set  forth  for 
the  country,  namely,  my  Lord  Viscount  and  the  other  gentle- 
man; Monsieur  Blaise,  and  Harry  on  a  pillion°  behind 
him,  and  two  or  three  men  with  pistols  and  leading  the  bag- 
gage-horses. And  all  along  the  road  the  Frenchman  told  5 
little  Harry  stories  of  brigands,  which  made  the  child's 
hair  stand  on  end,  and  terrified  him,  so  that  at  the  great 
gloomy  inn  on  the  road  where  they  lay,  he  besought  to  he 
allowed  to  sleep  in  a  room  with  one  of  the  servants,  and  was 
compassionated  by  Mr.  Holt,  the  gentleman  who  travelled  ic 
with  my  lord,  and  who  gave  the  child  a  little  bed  in  his 
chamber. 

His  artless  talk  and  answers  very  likely  inclined  this  gentle- 
man in  the  boy's  favour,  for  next  day  Mr.  Holt  said  Harry 
should  ride  behind  him,  and  not  with  the  French  lacquey;  15 
and  all  along  the  journey  put  a  thousand  questions  to  the 
child  —  as  to  his  foster-brother  and  relations  at  Ealing ; 
what  his  old  grandfather  had  taught  him;  what  languages 
he  knew ;  whether  he  could  read  and  write,  and  sing,  and  so 
forth.  And  Mr.  Holt  found  that  Flarry  could  read  and  write,  20 
and  possessed  the  two  languages  of  French  and  English  very 
well,  and  when  he  asked  Harry  about  singing,  the  lad  broke 
out  with  a  hymn  to  the  tune  of  Dr.  Martin  Luther, °  which 
set  ]\Ir.  Holt  a-laughing;  and  even  caused  his  grand  parrain 
in  the  laced  hat  and  perriwig  to  laugh  too  when  Holt  told  25 
him  what  the  child  was  singing.  For  it  appeared  that 
Dr.  Martin  Luther's  hymns  were  not  sung  in  the  churches 
Mr.  Holt  preached  at. 

"You  must  never  sing  that  song  any  more,  do  you  hear, 
little  mannikin  ?"  says  my  Lord  Viscount,  holding  up  a  finger.  3c 

''But  we  will  trj^  and  teach  you  a  better,  Harry,"  Mr.  Holt 
said,  and  the  child  answered,  for  he  was  a  docile  child,  and 
of  an  affectionate  nature,  "that  he  loved  pretty  songs,  and 
would  try  and  learn  anything  the  gentleman  would  tell  him." 
That  day  he  so  pleased  the  gentlemen  by  his  talk,  that  the}^  35 
had  him  to  dine  with  them  at  the  inn,  and  encouraged  him 
in  his  prattle ;  and  Monsieur  Blaise,  with  whom  he  rode  and 
dined  the  da}^  before,  waited  upon  him  now. 

"Tis  well,  'tis  well,"  said  Blaise,  that  night  (in  his  own 


22  HENRY  ESMOND 

language)  when  they  lay  again  at  an  inn.  "We  are  a  little 
lord  here,  we  are  a  little  lord  now :  we  shall  see  what  we  are 
when  we  come  to  Castle  wood  where  my  lady  is." 

"When  shall  we  come  to  Castlewood,  Monsieur  Blaise?" 
5  says  Harry. 

"Parbleu!  my  lord  does  not  press  himself/'  Blaise  says, 
with  a  grin;  and,  indeed,  it  seemed  as  if  his  lordship  was 
not  in  a  great  hurry,  for  he  spent  three  days  on  that  journey 
which  Harry  Esmond  hath  often  since  ridden  in  a  dozen 

10  hours.  For  the  last  two  of  the  days,  Harry  rode  with  the 
priest,  who  was  so  kind  to  him,  that  the  child  had  grown  to 
be  quite  fond  and  familiar  with  him  by  the  journey's  end, 
and  had  scarce  a  thought  in  his  little  heart  which  by  that 
time  he  had  not  confided  to  his  new  friend. 

15  At  length,  on  the  third  day,  at  evening,  they  came  to  a 
village  standing  on  a  green  with  elms  round  it,  very  pretty 
to  look  at ;  and  the  people  there  all  took  off  their  hats,  and 
made  curtsies  to  my  Lord  Viscount,  who  bowed  to  them  all 
languidly;    and  there  was  one  portly  person  that  wore  a 

20  cassock°  and  a  broad-leafed  hat,  who  bowed  lower  than  any 
one  —  and  with  this  one  both  my  lord  and  Mr.  Holt  had  a 
few  words.  "This,  Harry,  is  Castle  wood  church,"  says  Mr. 
Holt,  "and  this  is  the  pillar  thereof,  learned  Doctor  Tusher. 
Take  off  your  hat,  sirrah,  and  salute  Doctor  Tusher." 

25  "Come  up  to  supper.  Doctor,"  says  my  lord;  at  which  the 
Doctor  made  another  low  bow,  and  the  party  moved  on 
towards  a  grand  house  that  was  before  them,  with  many 
grey  towers  and  vanes  on  them,  and  Avindows  flaming  in 
the  sunshine :  and    a   great   army   of   rooks,    wheeling   over 

30  their  heads,  made  for  the  woods  behind  the  house,  as  Harry 
saw;  and  Mr.  Holt  told  him  that  they  lived  at  Castlewood 
too. 

They  came  to  the  house,  and  passed  under  an  arch  into  a 
courtyard,  with  a  fountain  in  the  centre,  where  many  men 

35  came  and  held  my  lord's  stirrup  as  he  descended;  and  i)aid 
great  respect  to  Mr.  Holt  likewise.  And  the  child  thought 
that  the  servants  looked  at  him  curiously  and  smiled  to  one 
another  —  and  he  lecalled  what  lilaise  had  said  to  him  when 
they  were  in  London,  and  Harry  had  spoken  about  his  god- 


BENRY  ESMOND  23 

papa,  when  the  Frenchman  said,  '  Parbleu,  one  sees  well  that 
my  lord  is  your  godfather ; '  words  whereof  the  poor  lad  did 
not  know  the  meaning  then :  though  he  apprehended  the 
truth  in  a  very  short  time  afterwards,  and  learned  it  and 
thought  of  it  with  no  small  feeling  of  shame.  5 

Taking  Harry  by  the  hand  as  soon  as  they  were  both 
descended  from  their  horses,  IVIr.  Holt  led  him  across  the 
court,  and  under  a  low  door  to  rooms  on  a  level  with  the 
ground;  one  of  which  Father  Holt  said  was  to  be  the  boy's 
chamber,  the  other  on  the  other  side  of  the  passage  being  the  lo 
Father's  own  ;  and  as  soon  as  the  little  man's  face  was  washed, 
and  the  Father's  own  dress  arranged,  Harry's  guide  took 
him  once  more  to  the  door  by  which  my  lord  had  entered 
the  hall,  and  \x]i  a  stair,  and  through  an  anteroom  to  my 
lady's  drawing-room  —  an  apartment  than  which  Harry  15 
thought  he  had  ne^'er  seen  anything  more  grand  —  no, 
not  in  the  Tower  of  London  which  he  had  just  visited.  In- 
deed the  chamber  was  richly  ornamented  in  the  manner  of 
Queen  Elizabeth's  time,°  with  great  stained  windows  at 
either  end,  and  hangings  of  tapestry,  which  the  sun  shining  20 
through  the  coloured  glass  paintecl  of  a  thousand  hues; 
and  here  in  state,  by  the  fire,  sate  a  lady  to  whom  the  priest 
took  up  Harr}^,  who  was  indeed  amazed  by  her  appearance. 

]\Iy  Lady  Viscountess's  face  was  daubed  with  white  and 
red  up  to  the  eyes,  to  which  the  paint  gave  an  unearthly  25 
glare :  she  had  a  tower  of  lace  on  her  head,  under  which 
was  a  bush  of  black  curls  —  borrowed  curls  —  so  that  no 
wonder  little  Harry  Esmond  was  scared  when  he  was  first 
presented  to  her  —  the  kind  priest  acting  as  master  of  the 
ceremonies  at  that  solemn  introduction  —  and  he  stared  Z° 
at  her  with  eyes  almost  as  great  as  her  own,  as  he  had  stared 
at  the  player-woman  who  acted  the  wicked  tragedy-queen, 
when  the  players  came  down  to  Ealing  Fair.  She  sate  in  a 
great  chair  by  the  fire-corner ;  in  her  lap  was  a  spaniel  dog 
that  barked  furiously ;  on  a  little  table  by  her  was  her  lad}'-  35 
ship's  snuff-box  and  her  sugar-plum  box.  She  wore  a 
dress  of  black  velvet,  and  a  petticoat  of  flame-coloured 
brocade.  She  had  as  many  rings  on  her  fingers  as  the  old 
woman  of  Banbury  Cross°;   and  pretty  small  feet  ^Yfeich  z\.z 


24  HENRY  ESMOND 

was  fond  of  showing,  with  great  gold  clocks  to  her  stockings; 
and  white  pantofles°  with  red  heels :  and  an  odour  of  musk 
was  shook  out  of  her  garments  whenever  she  moved  or  quitted 
the  room,  leaning  on  her  tortoiseshell  stick,  °  little  Furybark- 
5  ing  at  her  heels. 

Mrs.  Tusher,  the  parson's  wife,  was  with  my  lady.     She 

had  been  waiting-woman  to  her  ladyship  in  the  late  lord's 

time,  and  having  her  soul  in  that  business,  took  naturally 

to  it  when  the  Viscountess  of  Castlewood  returned  to  inhabit 

10  her  father's  house. 

"I  present  to  your  ladyship  your  kinsman  and  little  page 

of  honour,  Master  Henry  Esmond,"  Mr.  Holt  said,  bowing 

lowly,  with  a  sort  of  comical  humility.     "Make  a  pretty  bow 

to  my  lady,  monsieur;    and  then  another  little  bow,  not  so 

15  low,  to  Madame  Tusher  —  the  fair  priestess  of  Castlewood.'.' 

"Where  I  have  li\^ed  and  hope  to  die,  sir,"  says  Madame 
Tusher,  giving  a  hard  glance  at  the  brat,  and  then  at  my  lady. 

Upon  her  the  boy's  whole  attention  was  for  a  time  directed. 
He  could  not  keep  his  great  eyes  off  from  her.    Since  the  Em- 
20  press  of  Ealing  he  had  seen  nothing  so  awful. 

"Does  my  appearance  please  you,  little  page?"  asked  the 
lady. 

"He  would  be  very  hard  to  please  if  it  didn't,"  cried  Ma- 
dame Tusher. 
25      "Have  done,  you  silly  Maria,"  said  Lady  Castlewood. 

"Where  I'm  attached,  I'm  attached,  madam  —  and  I'd 
die  rather  than  not  say  so." 

"Je  meurs  oil  je  m'attache,"  Mr.  Holt  said  with  a  polite 
grin.     "The  ivy  says  so  in  the  picture,  and  clings  to  the 
30  oak°  like  a  fond  parasite  as  it  is." 

"Parricide°!   sir!"  cries  Mrs.  Tusher. 

"Hush,   Tusher  —  you  are  always  bickering  with  Father 

Holt,"  cried  my  lady.     "Come  and  kiss  my  hand,  child:" 

and  the  oak  held  out  a  branck  to  little  Harry  Esmond,  who 

35  took  and  dutifully  kissed  the  lean  old  hand,  upon  the  gnarled 

knuckles  of  which  there  glittered  a  hundred  rings. 

"To  kiss  that  hatid  would  make  many  a  pretty  fellow 
hai)py !"  cried  Mrs.  Tusher:  on  which  my  lady  crying  out, 
"■^Jo,  you  foolish  Tusher,"  and  tapping  her  with  her  great  fan. 


HENRY   ESMOND  25 

Tusher  ran  forward  to  seize  her  hand  and  kiss  it.  Fury- 
arose  and  barked  furiously  at  Tusher;  and  Father  Holt 
looked  on  at  this  queer  scene,  with  arch  grave  glances. 

The  awe  exliibited  by  the  little  boy  perhaps  pleased  the 
lady  to  whom  this  artless  flattery  was  bestowed,  for  having  5 
gone  down  on  his  knee  (as  Father  Holt  had  directed  him,  and 
the  mode  then  was)  and  performed  his  obeisance,  she  said, 
"  Page  Esmond,  my  groom  of  the  chamber  will  inform  you 
what  your  duties  are',  v/hen  you  wait  upon  my  lord  and  me ; 
and  good  Father  Holt  will  instruct  you  as  becomes  a  gentle-  la 
man  of  our  name.  You  will  pay  him  obedience  in  every- 
thing, and  I  pray  you  may  grow  to  be  as  learned,  and  as 
good  as  your  tutor.'' 

The  lady  seemed  to  have  the  greatest  reverence  for  Mr. 
Holt,  and  to  be  more  afraid  of  him  than  of  anything  else  in  15 
the  world.  If  she  was  ever  so  angry,  a  word,  or  look  from 
Father  Holt,  made  her  calm :  indeed  he  had  a  vast  power  of 
subjecting  those  who  came  near  him;  and,  among  the  rest, 
his  new  pupil  gave  himself  up  with  an  entire  confidence  and 
attachment  to  the  good  Father,  and  became  his  willing  20 
slave  almost  from  the  first  moment  he  saw  him. 

He  put  his  small  hand  into  the  Father's  as  he  walked 
away  from  his  first  presentation  to  his  mistress,  and  asked 
many  c[uestions  in  his  artless  childish  way.     "Who  is  that 
other  woman?"  he  asked.     ''She  is  fat  and  round,  she  is  25 
more  pretty  than  my  Lady  Castle  wood." 

"She  is  ]\Iadame  Tusher,  the  parson's  wife  of  Castlewood. 
She  has  a  son  of  your  age,  but  bigger  than  you." 

"Why  does  she  like  so  to  kiss  my  lady's  hand?  It  is  not 
good  to  kiss."  30 

"Tastes  are  different,  little  man.  Madame  Tusher  is  at- 
tached to  my  lady,  having  been  her  waiting- woman,  before 
she  was  married,  in  the  old  lord's  time.  She  married  Doctor 
Tusher  the  Chaplain.  The  EngUsli  household  divines  often 
marry  the  waiting- women."  35 

"You  will  not  marry  the  French  woman,  will  you?  I  saw 
her  laughing  with  Blaise  in  the  buttery." 

"I  belong  to  a  church  that  is  older  and  better  than  the  Eng- 
lish church,"  Mr.  Holt  said  (making  a  sign°  whereof  Esmond 


26  HENRY   ESMOND 

did  not  then  understand  the  meaning,  across  his  breast  and 
forehead);  "in  our  church  the  clergy  do  not  marry.°  You 
will  understand  these  things  better  soon." 

"Was  not  Saint  Peter °  the  head  of  j^our  church?  —  Dr. 
5  Rabbits  of  EaUng  told  us  so.'^ 

The  Father  said,  "Yes,  he  was." 

"But  Saint  Peter  was  married,  for  we  heard  only  last  Sun- 
day that  his  wife's  mother  lay  sick  of  a  fever."  On  which 
the  Father  again  laughed,  and  said  he  would  understand  this 

lo  too  better  soon,  and  talked  of  other  things,  and  took  away 
Harry  Esmond,  and  showed  him  the  great  old  house  which 
he  had  come  to  inhabit. 

It  stood  on  a  rising  green  hill,  with  woods  behind  it,  in 
which  were  rooks'  nests  where  the  birds  at  morning  and 

15  returning  home  at  evening  made  a  great  cawing.  At  the 
foot  of  the  hill  was  a  river  with  a  steep  ancient  bridge  cross- 
ing it ;  and  beyond  that  a  large  pleasant  green  flat,  where  the 
village  of  Castle  wood  stood  and  stands,  with  the  church  in 
the  midst,  the  parsonage  hard  by  it,  the  inn  with  the  black- 

20  smith's  forge  beside  it,  and  the  sign  of  the  Three  Castles° 
on  the  elm.  The  London  road  stretched  away  towards  the 
rising  sun,  and  to  the  west  were  swelling  hills  and  peaks  behind 
which  many  a  time  Harry  Esmond  saw  the  same  sun  setting, 
that  he  now  looks  on  thousands  of  miles  away,  across  the 

25  great  ocean,  — in  a  new  Castlewood  by  another  stream  that 
bears,  like  the  new  country  of  wandering  J3neas,°  the  fond 
names  of  the  land  of  his  youth. 

The  Hall  of  Castlewoocl  was  built  with  two  courts,  whereof 
one  only,  the  fountain  court,  was  now  inhabited,  the  other 

30  having  been  battered  down  in  the  Cromwollian  wars.  In 
the  fountain  court,  still  in  good  repair,  was  the  great  hall, 
near  to  tlie  kitchen  and  butteries.  A  dozen  of  living-rooms 
looking  to  the  north,  and  communicating  with  the  little 
chapel   that   faced   eastwards  and   the   l)uil(lings  stretching 

35  from  that  to  the  main  gate,  and  with  the  hall  (which  looked 
to  the  west)  into  the  court  now  dismantled.  This  court  had 
been  the  most  magnificent  of  the  two,  until  the  Protector's 
cannon  tore  down  one  side  of  it  before  the  ])lace  was  taken 
and  stormed.     The  besiegers  entered  at  the  terrace  under 


HENRY  ESMOND  27 

the  clock-tower,  slaying  every  man  of  the  garrison,  and  at 
their  head  my  lord's  brother,  Francis  Esmond. 

The  Restoration  did  not  bring  enough  money  to  the  Lord 
Castlewood  to  restore  this  ruined  part  of  his  house;  where 
were  the  morning  parlours,  above  them  the  long  musick-  5 
gallery,  and  before  which  stretched  the  garden  terrace, 
where,  however,  the  flowers  grew  again,  which  tha  boots  of  the 
Roundheads  had  trodden  in  their  assault,  and  which  was 
restored  without  much  cost,  and  only  a  little  care,  by  both 
ladies  who  succeeded  the  second  viscount  in  the  govern-  la 
ment  of  this  mansion.  Round  the  terrace-garden  was  a 
low  wall,  with  a  wicket  leading  to  the  wooded  height  beyond, 
that  is  called  Cromwell's  battery  to  this  day. 

Young  Harry  Esmond  learned  the  domestick  part  of  his 
duty,  which  was  easy  enough,  from  the  groom  of  her  lady-  15 
ship's  chamber :  serving  the  Countess,  as  the  custom  com- 
monly was  in  his  boyhood,  as  page,  waiting  at  her  chair, 
bringing  her  scented  water  and  the  silver  basin  after  dinner 
—  sitting  on  her  carriage  step  on  state  occasions,  or  on  pub- 
lic days  introducing  her  company  to  her.  This  was  chiefly  20 
of  the  Catholic  gentry, °  of  whom  there  were  a  pretty 
many  in  the  country  and  neighbouring  city;  and  who  rode 
not  seldom  to  Castlewood  to  partake  of  the  hospitalities 
there.  In  the  second  year  of  their  residence  the  company 
seemed  especially  to  increase.  My  lord  and  m}^  lad}'  were  25 
seldom  without  visitors,  in  whose  society  it  was  curious  to 
contrast  the  difference  of  behaviour  between  Father  Holt, 
the  director  of  the  family,  and  Doctor  Tusher,  the  rector 
of  the  parish  —  Mr.  Holt  moving  amongst  the  very  highest 
as  quite  their  equal,  and  as  com.manding  tliem  all;  vrhile  30 
poor  Doctor  Tusher,  whose  position  was  indeed  a  difficult 
one,  having  been  Chaplain  once  to  the  Hall,  and  still  to  the 
Protestant  servants  there,  seemed  more  like  an  usher  than  an 
ecjual,  and  always  rose  to  go  away  after  the  first  course. 

Also   there   came   in   these   times  to   Father   Holt   many  35 
private  visitors,  whom  after  a  little,  Harry  Esmond  had  little 
difficulty    in    recognising    as    ecclesiastics    of    the    Father's 
persuasion :    whatever  their  dresses  (and  they  adopted  all) 
might  be.     These  were  closeted  with  the  Father  constantly, 


28  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  often  came  and  rode  away  without  paying  their  devoirs'* 
to  my  lord  and  lady  —  to  the  lady  and  lord  rather  —  his 
lordship  being  little  more  than  a  cypher  in  the  house,  and 
entirely  under  his  domineering  partner.  A  little  fowling,  a 
5  little  hunting,  a  great  deal  of  sleep,  and  a  long  time  at  cards 
and  table,  carried  through  one  day  after  another  with  his 
lordship.  When  meetings  took  place  in  this  second  year, 
which  often  would  happen  with  closed  doors,  the  page  found 
my  lord's  sheet  of  paper  scribbled  over  with  dogs  and  horses, 

10  and  'twas  said  he  had  much  ado  to  keep  himself  awake  at 
these  councils :  the  Countess  ruling  over  them,  and  he  acting- 
as  little  more  than  her  secretary. 

Father  Holt  began  speedily  to  be  so  much  occupied  with 
these  meetings  as  rather  to  neglect  the  education  of  the  little 

15  lad  who  so  gladly  put  himself  under  the  kind  priest's  orders. 
At  first  they  read  much  and  regularly,  both  in  Latin  and 
French;  the  Father  not  neglecting  in  anything  to  impress 
his  faith  upon  his  pupil,  but  not  forcing  him  violently,  and 
treating  him  with  a  dehcacy  and  kindness  which  surprised 

20  and  attached  the  child,  always  more  easily  won  by  these 
methods  than  by  any  severe  exercise  of  authority.  And  his 
delight  in  their  walks  was  to  tell  Harry  of  the  glories  of  his 
order, °  of  its  martyrs  and  heroes,  of  its  brethren  converting 
the  heathen  by  myriads,  traversing   the   desert,  facing   the 

25  stake,  ruling  the  courts  and  councils,  or  braving  the  tortures 
of  kings;  so  that  Harry  Esmond  thought  that  to  belong  to 
the  Jesuits  was  the  greatest  prize  of  life  and  bravest  end  of 
ambition ;  the  greatest  career  here,  and  in  heaven  the  surest 
reward;  and  began  to  long  for  the  day,  not  only  when  he 

30  should  enter  into  the  one  church  and  receive  his  first  com- 
munion, but  when  he  might  join  that  wonderful  brother- 
hood, which  was  present  throughout  all  the  world,  and  which 
numbered  the  wisest,  the  bravest,  the  highest  born,  the 
most     elorjuent     of    men,    among     its    members.       Father 

35  Holt  bade  him  keep  his  ^^ews  secret,  and  to  hide  them  as 
a  gi-eat  treasure  which  would  escape  him  if  it  was  revealed; 
and  ])roud  of  this  confidence  and  secret  vested  in  him,  the 
lad  became  fondly  attached  to  the  master  who  initiated  him 
into  a  mystery  so  wonderful  ai^d  awful.     And  when  little 


HENRY   ESMOND  29 

Tom  lusher,  his  neighbour,  came  from  school  for  his  hohday, 
and  said  how  he,  too,  was  to  be  bred  up  for  an  EngHsh  priest, ° 
and  would  get  what  he  called  an  exhibition^  from  his  school, 
and  then  a  college  scholarship  and  fellowship,  and  then  a  good 
living  —  it  tasked   young  Harry  Esmond's   powers   of   reti-  5 
cence  not  to  say  to  his  young  companion,  "Church!  priest- 
hood !    fat  living !     My  dear  Tommy,  do  you  call  yours  a 
church  and  a  priesthood  ?     What  is  a  fat  living  compared 
to   converting   a   hundred   thousand   heathens   by   a   single, 
sermon  ?     What  is  a  scholarship  at  Trinity°  by  the  side  of  a  lo 
crown  of  martyrdom,  with  angels  awaiting  you  as  yowY  head 
is  taken  off?     Could  your  master  at  school  sail  over  the 
Thames  on  his  gown?     Have  you  statues  in  your  church 
that  can  bleed,  speak,  walk,  and   cry?      ]\Iy  good  Tommy, 
in  dear  Father  Holt's  church  these  things  take  place  every  15 
day.     You  know  Saint  Philip°  of  the  Willows  appeared  to 
Lord  Castiewood  and  caused  him  to  turn  to  the  one  true 
church.     No  saints  ever  come  to  3'^ou."     And  Harry  Esmond, 
because  of  his  promise  to  Father  Holt,  hiding  away  these 
treasures  of  faith  from  T.  Tusher,  delivered  himself  of  them  20 
nevertheless  simply  to  Father  Holt,  who  stroked  his  head, 
smiled  at  him  with  his  inscrutable  look,  and  told  him  that  he 
did  well  to  meditate  on  these  great  things,  and  not  to  talk 
of  them  except  under  direction. 


CHAPTER  IV 

I   AM    PLACED    UNDER    A    POPISH    PRIEST,    AND    BRED    TO    THAT 
RELIGION  —  VISCOUNTESS    CASTLEWOOD 

Had  time  enough  been  given  and  his  childish  inclixiations  25 
been  properly  nurtured,  Harry  Esmond  had  been  a  Jesuit 
priest  ere  he  was  a  dozen  years  older,  and  might  have  finished 
his  days  a  martyr  in  China  or  a  victim  on  Tower  Hili° :  lOr 
in  the  few  months  they  spent  together  at  Castiewood.  Mr.  Holt 
obtained  an  entire  mastery  over  the  boy's  intellect  and  30 
affections :  and  had  brought  him  to  think,  as  indeed  Fathsr 
Holt  thought  with  all  his  heart  too,  that  no  life  was  so  nobie. 


30  HENRY   ESMOND 

no  death  so  desirable,  as  that  which  many  brethren  of  his 
famous  order  were  ready  to  undergo.  B}^  love,  by  a  bright- 
ness of  wit  and  good  humour  that  charmed  all,  by  an  author- 
ity which  he  knew  how  to  assume,  by  a  mystery  and  silence 
5  about  him  which  increased  the  child's  reverence  for  him,  he 
won  Harry's  absolute  fealty,  and  would  have  kept  it,  doubt- 
less, if  schemes  greater  and  more  important  than  a  poor  little 
boy's  admission  into  orders  had  not  called  him  away. 

After  being  at  home  for  a  few  months  in  tranquillity  (if 

10  theirs  might  be  called  tranquillity,  which  was,  in  truth,  a 
constant  bickering),  my  lord  and  lady  left  the  country  for 
London,  taking  their  director  with  them  :  and  his  little  pupil 
scarce  ever  shed  more  bitter  tears  in  his  life  than  he  did  for 
nights  after  the  first  parting  with  his  dear  friend,  as  he  lay 

15  in  the  lonely  chamber  next  to  that  which  the  Father  used  to 
occupy.  He  and  a  few  domestics  were  left  as  the  only 
tenants  of  the  great  house :  and  though  Harry  sedulously 
did  all  the  tasks  which  the  Father  set  him,  he  had  many 
hours  unoccupied,  and  read  in  the  library,  and  bewildered 

30  his  little  brains  with  the  great  books  he  found  there. 

After  a  while  the  little  lad  grew  accustomed  to  the  lone- 
liness of  the  place ;  and  in  after  days  remembered  this  part 
of  his  life  as  a  period  not  unhappy.  When  the  famih''  was 
at  London  the  whole  of  the  establishment  travelled  thither 

«5  with  the  exception  of  the  porter,  who  was,  moreover,  brewer, 
gardener,  and  woodman,  and  his  wife  and  children.  These 
had  their  lodging  in  the  gatehouse  hard  by,  with  a  door 
into  the  court,  and  a  window  looking  out  on  the  Green  was 
the  Chaplain's  room ;  and  next  to  this  a  small  chamber  where 

30  Father  Holt  had  his  books,  and  Harry  Esmond  his  sleeping 
closet.  The  side  of  the  house  facing  the  east  had  escaped 
the  guns  of  the  Cromwollians,  whose  battery  was  on  the 
height  facing  the  western  court;  so  that  this  eastern  end 
bore  few  marks  of  demolition,  save  in  the  chapel,  where  the 

35  painted  windows  surviving  ]*](hvard  the  Sixth°  had  been 
l)roke  by  the  Commonwealth  men.  \n  Father  Holt's  time 
little  Harry  Esmond  acted  as  his  familiar,  and  faithful  little 
servitor;  beating  his  clothes,  folding  his  vestments,  fetching 
his  water  from  the  wf^ll  long  before  daylight,  ready  to  run 


HENRY   ESMOND  31 

anywhere  for  the  service  of  his  beloved  priest.  When  the 
Father  was  away,  he  locked  his  private  chamber,  but  the 
room  where  the  books  were  was  left  to  little  Harry,  who  but 
for  the  society  of  this  gentleman  was  little  less  solitary  when 
Lord  Castle  wood  was  at  home.  5 

The  French  wit  saith  that  a  hero  is  none  to  his  valet-de- 
chamhre,  and  it  required  less  quick  eyes  than  m.y  lady's 
little  page  was  naturally  endowed  with,  to  see  that  she  had 
many  qualities  by  no  means  heroick,  however  much  Mrs. 
Tusher  might  flatter  and  coax  her.  When  Father  Holt  was  iQ 
not  by,  who  exercised  an  entire  authority  over  the  pair,  my 
lord  and  my  lady  quarrelled  and  abused  each  other  so  as  to 
make  the  servants  laugh,  and  to  frighten  the  little  page  on 
duty.  The  poor  boy  trembled  before  his  mistress,  who 
called  him  by  a  hundred  ugly  names,  who  made  nothing  of  15 
boxing  his  ears  and  tilting  the  silver  basin  in  his  face  which 
it  was  his  business  to  present  to  her  after  dinner.  She  hath 
repaired,  by  subsequent  kindness  to  him,  these  severities, 
which  it  must  be  owned  made  his  childhood  very  unhappy. 
She  was  but  unhappy  herself  at  this  time,  poor  soul,  and  20 
I  suppose  made  her  dependents  lead  her  own  sad  life. 
I  think  my.  lord  was  as  much  afraid  of  her  as  her  page  was, 
and  the  only  person  of  the  household  who  mastered  her 
was  Mr.  Holt.  Harry  was  only  too  glad  when  the  Father 
dined  at  table,  and  to  slink  away  and  prattle  with  him  after-  25 
wards,  or  read  with  him,  or  walk  with  him.  Luckily  my 
Lady  Viscountess  did  not  rise  till  noon.  .Heaven  help  the 
poor  waiting-woman  who  had  charge  of  her  toilet !  I  have 
often  seen  the  poor  wretch  come  out  with  red  eyes  from  the 
clcset,  where  those  long  and  mysterious  rites  of  her  lady-  3° 
ship^s  dress  were  performed,  and  the  backgammon-box 
locked  up  with  a  rap  on  Mrs.  Tusher 's  fingers  when  she 
played  ill  or  the  game  was  going  the  wrong  way. 

Blessed  be  the  king  who  introduced  cards,  and  the  kind 
inventors  of  piquet  and  cribbage,°  for  they  employed  six  35 
hours  at  least  of  her  ladyship's  day,  during  which  her  family 
was  prett}^  easy.  Without  this  occupation  my  lady  fre- 
quently declared  she  should  die.  Her  dependents  one  after 
another  relieved  guard  —  'twas  rather  a  dangerous  post  to 


B2  HENRY   ESMOND 

play  with  her  ladyship  —  and  took  the  cards  turn  about. 
Mr.  Holt  would  sit  with  her  at  piquet  during  hours  together, 
at  which  time  she  behaved  herself  properly;  and  as  for  Dr. 
Tusher,  I  believe  he  w^ould  have  left  a  parishioner's  dying  bed, 
5  if  summoned  to  play  a  rubber  with  his  patroness  at  Cas- 
tlewood.  Sometimes,  when  they  were  pretty  comfortable 
together,  my  lord  took  a  hand.  Besides  these  my  lady  had 
her  faithful  poor  Tusher,  and  one,  two,  three  gentlewomen 
whom   Harry    Esmond   could   recollect   in   his  time.     They 

10  could  not  bear  that  genteel  service  very  long;  one  after 
another  tried  and  failed  at  it.  These  and  the  housekeeper, 
and  little  Harry  Esmond  had  a  table  of  their  own.     Poor 

*  ladies !  their  life  was  far  harder  than  the  page's.  He  was 
sound  asleep  tucked  up  in  his  little  bed,  whilst  they  were 

15  sitting  by  her  ladyship  reading  her  to  sleep,  with  the  Neivs 
Letter°  or  the  Grand  Cyrus  °  My  lady  used  to  ha^'e  boxes 
of  new  plays  from  London,  and  Harry  was  forbidden, 
under  the  pain  of  a  whipping,  to  look  into  them.  I  am 
afraid    he    deserved   the   penalty  pretty  often,   and   got   it 

20  sometimes.  Father  Holt  applied  it  twice  or  thrice,  when 
he  caught  the  young  scapegrace  with  a  delightful  wicked 
comedy  of  Mr.  Shadweirs°  or  Mr.  Wycherley's  under  his 
pillow. 

These,  when  he  took  any,  were  my  lord's  favourite  reading. 

25  But  he  was  averse  to  much  study,  and,  as  his  little  page 
fancied,  to  much  occupation  of  any  sort. 

It  always  seemed  to  young  Harry  Esmond  that  my  lord 
treated  him  with  more  kindness  when  his  lady  was  not 
present,  and  Lord  Castlewood  would  take  the  lad  sometimes 

30  on  his  little  journeys  a-hunting,  or  a-birding;  he  loved  to 
play  at  cards  and  tric-trac  with  him,  which  games  the  boy 
i(!arned  to  pleasure  his  lord ;  and  was  growing  to  like  him 
better  daily,  showing  a  special  pbasure  if  Father  Holt  gave 
a  good  report  of  him,  patting  him  on  the  head,  and  promising 

35  that  he  would  j)rovi(le  for  the  lK)y.  However,  in  my  lady's 
presence,  my  lord  showed  no  such  marks  of  kindness,  and 
affected  to  treat  the  lad  rouglily,  and  rebuked  him  sharply 
for  little  faults  —  for  which  he  in  a  manner  asked  j)ardon  of 
young  Esmond  when  they  were  private,  saying  if  he  did 


HENRY   ESMOND  33 

not  speak  roughly,  she  would,  and  his  tongue  was  not  such  a 
bad  one  as  his  lady's  —  a  point  whereof  the  boy,  young  as 
he  was,  was  very  well  assured. 

Great  public  events  were  happening  all  this  while  of  which 
the  simple  young  page  took  Httle  count.  But  one  day  riding  5 
into  the  neighbouring  town  on  the  step  of  my  lady's  coach, 
his  lordship  and  she,  and  Father  Holt,  being  inside,  a  great 
mob  of  people  came  hooting  and  jeering  round  the  coach, 
bawling  out  "  The  Bishops  for  ever  ! ''  "  Down  with  the  Pope  ! " 
"No  Popery:  no  Popery!  Jezebel,  Jezebel!''  so  that  my  re 
lord  began  to  laugh,  my  lady's  eyes  to  roll  with  anger,  for 
she  was  as  bold  as  a  lioness,  and  feared  nobody,  whilst  Mr. 
Holt,  as  Esmond  saw  from  his  place  on  the  step,  sank  back 
with  rather  an  alarmed  face,  crying  out  to  her  ladyship, 
"  For  God's  sake,  madam,  do  not  speak  or  look  out  of  window,  15 
sit  still."  But  she  did  not  obey  this  prudent  injunction 
of  the  Father ;  she  thrust  her  head  out  of  the  coach  window, 
and  screamed  out  to  the  coachman,  "  Flog  your  way  through 
them,  the  brutes,  James,  and  use  your  whip  !" 

The  mob  answered  w^ith  a  roaring  jeer  of  laughter,  and  20 
fresh  cries  of  "Jezebel!  Jezebel!"  My  lord  only  laughed 
the  more :  he  was  a  languid  gentleman :  nothing  seemed  to 
excite  him  commonly,  though  I  have  seen  him  cheer  and 
halloo  the  hounds  very  briskly,  and  his  face  (which  was 
generally  very  yellow  and  calm.)  grow  quite  red  and  cheerful  25 
during  a  burst  over  the  Downs°  after  a  hare,  and  laugh,  and 
swear,  and  huzza,  at  a  cock-fight, °  of  which  sport  he  was  very 
fond.  And  now,  when  the  mob  began  to  hoot  his  lady,  he 
laughed  with  something  of  a  mischievous  look,  as  though  he 
expected  sport,  and  thought  that  she  and  they  were  a  match.  3c 

James  the  coachman  was  more  afraid  of  his  mistress  than 
the  mob,  probably,  for  he  whipped  on  his  horses  as  he  was 
bidden,  and  the  postboy  that  rode  with  the  first  pair  (my 
lady  always  went  with  her  coach-and-six)  gave  a  cut  of  his 
thong  over  the  shoulders  of  one  fellow  who  put  his  hand  out  35 
towards  the  leading  horse's  rein. 

It  was  a  market-day,  and  the  country  people  were  all 
assembled  with  their  baskets  of  poultry,  eggs,  and  such 
things;    the  postihon  had  no  sooner  lashed  the  man  who 


34  HENRY  ESMOND 

would  have  taken  hold  of  his  horse,  but  a  great  cabbage 
came  whirling  like  a  bombshell  into  the  carriage,  at  which 
my  lord  laughed  more,  for  it  knocked  my  lady's  fan  out  of 
her  hand,  and  plumped  into  Father  Holt's  stomach.  Then 
5  came  a  shower  of  carrots  and  potatoes. 

"For  Heaven's  sake  be  still,"  says  Mr.  Holt;  ''we  are  not 
ten  paces  from  the  Bell  archway,  °  where  they  can  shut  tht. 
gates  on  us,  and  keep  out  this  canaille. °" 

The   little   page    was    outside   the    coach   on    the    step, 

lo  and  a  fellow  in  the  crowd  aimed  a  potato  at  him,  and 
hit  him  in  the  eye,  at  which  the  poor  little  wretch  set  up  a 
shout;    the  man   laughed,  a  great    big  saddler's  apprentice 

of  the  town.    "Ah  !   you  d little  yelling  Popish  bastard," 

he  said,  and  stooped  to  pick  up  another;    the  crowd  had 

15  gathered  quite  between  the  horses  and  the  Inn  door  by 
this  time,  and  the  coach  was  brought  to  a  dead  stand-still. 
My  lord  jumped  as  briskly  as  a  boy  out  of  the  door  on  his 
side  of  the  coach,  squeezing  little  Harry  behind  it;  had 
hold  of  the  potato  thrower's  collar  in  an  instant,  and  the 

20  next  moment  the  brute's  heels  were  in  the  air  and  he  fell 
on  the  stones  with  a  thump. 

"You  hulking  coward!"  says  he;  "you  pack  of  screaming 
blackguards.  How  dare  you  attack  children,  and  insult 
women?     Fling  another  shot  at  that  carriage,  you  sneaking 

25  pigskin  cobbler,  and  by  the  Lord,  I'll  send  my  rapier  through 
you." 

Some  of  the  mob  cried,  "Huzza,  my  lord !"  for  they  knew 
him,  and  the  saddler's  man  was  a  known  bruiser,  near  twice 
as  big  as  my  Lord  Viscount. 

3°  ''Make  way,  there,"  says  he  (he  spoke  in  a  high  shrill 
voice,  but  with  a  great  air  of  authority).  "Make  wav  and 
let  her  ladyship's  carriage  pass."  The  men  that  were  between 
the  coach  and  the  gate  of  the  Bell  actually  did  make  way,  and 
the  horses  went  in,  my  lord  walking  after  them  with  his  hat 

35  on  his  head. 

As  he  was  going  in  at  the  gate,  through  which  the  coach 
had  just  rolled,  another   cry   begins,  of  "No    Popery  —  no 
Papists!"     My  lord  turns  rouud  and  faces  thorn  once  more. 
"God  save  the  King!"  says  he  at  the  highest  pitch  of  his 


HENRY   ESMOND  35 

voice.     "Who  dares  abuse  the  King's  rehgion°?     You,  you 

d d  psalm-singing  cobbler, °  as  sure  as  I'm  a  magistrate° 

of  this  county,  I'll  commit°  3'ou."  The  fellow  shrunk 
back,  and  my  lord  retreated  with  all  the  honours  of  the  day. 
But  when  the  little  flurry  caused  by  the  scene  was  over,  and  5 
the  flush  passed  off  his  face,  he  relapsed  into  his  usual  languor, 
trifled  with  his  little  dog  and  yawned  when  my  lady  spoke  to 
him.  • 

This  m.ob  was  one  of  many  thousands  that  were  going 
about  the  countr}^  at  that  time,  huzzaing  for  the  acquittal  10 
of  the  seven  bishops°  who  had  been  tried  just  then,  and 
about  whom  little  Harry  Esmond  at  that  time  knew  scarce 
anything.     It  was  assizes°  at  Hexton,  and  there  was  a  great 
meeting  of  the  gentry  at  the  Bell;    and  my  lord's  people 
had  their  new  liveries  on.  and  Harry  a  little  suit  of  blue  and  15 
silver,   which,  he   wore   upon   occasions   of   state;    and  the 
gentlefolks  came  round  and  talked  to  my  lord;   and  a  judge 
in  a  red  gown,  who  seemed  a  very  great  personage,  especially  ■ 
comphmented  him  and  my  lady,  who  was  mighty  grand. 
Harry  remembers  her  train  borne  up  by  her  gentlewoman.  20 
There  was  an  assembly  and  ball  at  \he  great  room  at  the 
Bell,   and    other  young  gentlemen  of    the   county  families 
looked  on  as  he  did.     One  of  them  jeered  him  for  his  black 
eye,  which  ■  was  swelled  by  the  potato,  and  another  called 
hrni  a  bastard,  on  which  he  and  Harry  fell  to  fisticuffs.     My  25 
lord's  cousin.  Colonel  Esmond  of  Walcote,  was  there,  and 
separated   the   two   lads  —  a   great   tall   gentleman   with   a 
handsome,  good-natured  face.     The  boy  did  not  know  how 
nearh^  in  after  hfe  he  should  be  allied  to  Colonel  Esmond, 
and  how  much  kindness  he  should  have  to  owe  him.  30 

There  was  little  love  between  the  two  famihes.  My  lady 
used  not  to  spare  Colonel  Esmond  in  talking  of  him,  for 
reasons  which  have  been  hinted  already;  but  about  which, 
at  his  tender  age,  Henry  Esmond  could  be  expected  to  know 
nothing.  35 

Very  soon  afterwards  my  lord  and  lady  went  to  London 
with  ]\Ir.  Holt,  leaving,  however,  the  page  behind  them. 
The  little  man  had  the  great  house  of  Castlewood  to  himself; 
or  between  him  and  the  housekeeper,  Mrs.  Worksop,  an  old 


36  HENRY   ESMOND 

lady  who  was  a  kinswoman  of  the  family  in  some  distani 
way,  and  a  Protestant,  but  a  stanch  Tory  and  king's-man, 
as  all  the  Esmonds  were.  He  used  to  go  to  school  to  Dr. 
Tusher  when  he  was  at  home,  though  the  Doctor  was  much 

5  occupied  too.  There  was  a  great  stir  and  commotion  every- 
where, even  in  the  little  quiet  village  of  Castle  wood,  whither 
a  party  of  people  came  from  the  town,  who  would  have 
broken  Castlewood  Chapel  windows,  but  the  village  people 
turned  out;  and  even  old  Sieve wright,  the  republican  black- 

io  smith,  along  with  them :  for  my  lady,  though  she  was  a 
Papist,  and  had  many  odd  ways,  was  kind  to  the  tenantry, 
and  there  was  always  a  plenty  of  beef  and  blankets,  and 
medicine  for  the  poor,  at  Castlewood  Ha)!. 

A  kingdom  was  changing  hands  whilst  my  lord  and  lady 

15  were  away.  King  James  was  flying,  the  Dutchmen  were 
coming;  awful  stories  about  them  and  the  Prince  of  Orange 
used  old  Mrs.  Worksop  to  tell  to  the  idle  little  page. 

He  liked  the  solitude  of  the  great  house  very  well ;  he  had 
all  the  play-books  to  read,  and  no  Father  Holt  to  whip  him, 

20  and  a  hundred  childish  pursuits  and  pastimes,  without  doors 
and  within,  which  made  this  time  very  pleasant. 


CHAPTER  V 

MY  SUPERIORS  ARE  ENGAGED  IN  PLOTS  FOR  THE  RESTORATION 
OF    KING    JAMES    II. 

Not  ixaving  been  able  to  sleep,  for  thinking  of  some  lines 
for  eels  which  he  had  placed  the  night  before,  the  lad  was 
lying  in  nis  little  bed,  waiting  for  the  hour  when  the  gate 

25  would  be  open,  and  he  and  his  comrade,  Job  Lockwood  the 
porter's  son,  might  go  to  the  pond  and  see  what  fortune  had 
bt ought  them.  At  daybreak  Job  was  to  awaken  him,  but 
his  own  eagerness  for  the  sport  had  ser\'ed  as  a  r4vnllcz°  long 
since  —  so  long,  that  it  seemed  to  him  as  if  the  day  never 

30  would  come. 

It  might  have  been  four  o'cloc^k  when  he  heard  the  door 
of  the  opposite  chamber,  the  Chap  la  in 's°  room,  open,  and 


HENRY   ESMOND  37 

the  voice  of  a  man  coughing  in  the  passage.  Harry  jumped 
up,  thinking  for  certain  it  was  a  robber,  or  hoping,  perhaps, 
for  a  ghost,  and  flinging  open  his  own  door,  saw  before  him 
the  Chaplain's  door  open,  and  a  light  inside,  and  a  figure  stand- 
ing in  the  doorway,  in  the  midst  of  a  great  smoke  which  5 
issued  from  the   room. 

'*  Who's  there  ?  "  cried  out  the  boy,  who  was  of  a  good  spirit. 

"Silentram° ! ''  whispered  the  other;  "'tis  I,  my  boy!^' 
and  holding  his  hand  out,  Harry  had  no  difficulty  in  recog- 
nising his  master  and  friend,  Father  Holt.  A  curtain  was  10 
over  the  window  of  the  Chaplain's  room  that  looked  to  the 
court,  and  Harry  saw  that  the  smoke  came  from  a  great 
flame  of  papers  which  were  burning  in  a  brazier°  when  he 
entered  the  Chaplain's  room.  After  giving  a  hasty  greeting 
and  blessing  to  the  lad,  who  was  charmed  to  see  his  tutor,  15 
the  Father  continued  the  burning  of  his  papers,  drawing  them 
from  a  cupboard  over  the  mantelpiece  wall,  which  Harry 
had  never  seen  before. 

Father  Holt  laughed,  seeing  the  lad's  attention  fixed  at 
cnce  an  this  hole.     "That  is  right,  Harry,"  he  said;  "faithful  20 
little  famuli°   see   all  and   say  nothing.     You  are  faithful, 
I.  know." 

"I  know  I  would  go  to  the  stake  for  you,"  said  Harry. 

"  I  don't  want  your  head,"  said  the  Father,  patting  it  kindly ; 
"all  you  have  to  do  is  to  hold  your  tongue.    Let  us  burn  these  25 
papers,  and  say  nothing  to  anybody.     Should  j^ou  like  to 
read  them?" 

Harr}^  Esmond  blushed,  and  held  down  his  head;  he 
had  looked  as  the  fact  was,  and  without  thinking,  at  the 
paper  before  him;  and  though  he  had  seen  it,  could  not  3° 
understand  a  word  of  it,  the  letters  being  quite  clear  enough, 
but  quite  without  meaning.  They  burned  the  papers, 
beating  down  the  ashes  in  a  brazier,  so  that  scarce  any  traces 
of  them  remained. 

Harry  had  been  accustomed  to  see  Father  Holt  in  more  35 
dresses  than  one ;    it  not  being  safe,  or  worth  the  danger, 
for  Popish  ecclesiasticks  to  wear  their  proper  dress ;  and  he 
was  in  consequence  in  no  wise  astonished  that  the  priest 
should  soon  appear  before  him  in  a  riding  dress,  with  large 


38  HENRY   ESMOND 

buff  leather  boots,  and  a  feather  to  his  hat,  plain,  but  such  as 
gentlemen  wore. 

''You  know  the  secret  of  the  cupboard,"  said  he,  laughing 
"and  must  be  prepared  for  other  mysteries;"  and  he  opened 
5  —  but  not  a  secret  cupboard  this  time  —  only  a  wardrobe, 
which  he  usually  kept  locked,  and  from  which  he  now  took 
out  two  or  three  dresses  and  perruques°  of  different  colours, 
a  couple  of  swords  of  a  pretty  make  (Father  Holt  was  an 
expert  practitioner  with  the   small  sword,  and  every  daj^, 

10  whilst  he  was  at  home,  he  and  his  pupil  practised  this  exer- 
cise, in  which  the  lad  became  a  very  great  proficient),  a 
military  coat  and  cloak,  and  a  farmer's  smock, °  and  placed 
them  in  the  large  hole  over  the  mantelpiece  from  which  the 
papers  had  been  taken. 

15  *'If  they  miss  the  cupboard,"  he  said,  ''they  will  not  find 
these;  if  they  find  them,  they'll  tell  no  tales,  except  that 
Father  Holt  wore  more  suits  of  clothes  than  one.  All 
Jesuits  do.     You  know  what  deceivers  we  are,  Harry." 

Harry   was   alarmed   at   the   notion   that   his   friend   was 

20  about  to  leave  him;  but  "No,"  the  priest  said;  "I  may  very 
likely  come  back  with  my  lord  in  a  few  days.  We  are  to 
be  tolerated;  we  are  not  to  be  persecuted.  But  they  may 
take  a  fancy  to  pay  a  visit  at  Castlewood  ere  our  return; 
and  as  gentlemen  of  my  cloth°  are  suspected,  they  might 

25  choose  to  examine  my  papers,  which  concern  nobody  —  at 
least,  not  them."  And  to  this  day,  whether  the  papers  in 
cypher  related  to  politicks,  or  to  the  affairs  of  that  mysterious 
society  whereof  Father  Holt  was  a  member,  his  pupil,  Harry 
Esmond,  remains  in  entire  ignorance. 

30  The  rest  of  his  goods,  his  small  wardrobe,  etc.,  Holt  left 
untouched  on  his  shelves  and  in  his  cupboard,  taking  down 
—  with  a  laugh,  however  —  and  Hinging  into  the  brazier, 
where  he  only  half  burned  tlnun,  some  theological  treatises 
wliich    he    had    been    writing   against    the    ICnglish    divines. 

35  "  And  now,"  said  he,  "  Hemy,  my  son,  you  may  testify,  with  a 
safe  conscience,  that  you  saw  me  burning  Latin  sermons  the 
last  time  I  was  here  before  1  went  away  to  London ;  and  it 
will  l)e  daybreak  directly,  and  I  must  be  away  before  Lock- 
wood  is  stirring." 


HENRY   ESMOND  39 

"Will  not  Lockwood  let  you  out,  sir?"  Esmond  asked. 
Holt  laughed;  he  was  never  more  gay  or  good-humoured 
than  when  in  the  midst  of  action  or  danger.- 

"Lockwood  knows  nothing  of  my  being  here,  mind  you," 
he  said;  "nor  would  you,  you  little  wretch,  had  you  slept  5 
better.  You  must  forget  that  I  have  been  here;  and  now 
farewell.  Close  the  door,  and  go  to  your  own  room,  and 
don't  come  out  till  —  stay,  why  should  you  not  know  one 
secret  more  ?     I  know  you  will  never  betray  me." 

In    the   Chaplain's    room   were   two   windows;    the   one  10 
looking   into  the  court  facing  westwards  to  the  fountain; 
the  other,   a  small  casement   strongly  barred,   and  looking 
on  to  the  green  in  front  of  the  Hall.     This  window  was  too 
high  to  reach  from  the  ground ;  but,  mounting  on  a  buffet° 
which  stood  beneath  it.   Father  Holt  showed  me  how,  by  15 
pressing  on  the  base  of  the  window,  the  whole  framework 
of  lead,  glass,  and  iron  staunchions,°  descended  into  a  cavity 
workecl  below,  from  which  it  could  be  drawn  and  restored 
to  its  usual  place  from  without ;    a  broken  pane  being  pur- 
posely open  to  admit  the  hand  which  was  to  work  upon  the  20 
spring  of  the  machine. 

"When  I  am  gone,"  Father  Holt  said^  "you  may  push 
away  the  buffet,  so  that  no  one  may  fancy  that  an  exit  has 
been  made  that  way ;  lock  the  door ;  place  the  key  —  where 
shall  we  put  the  key?  —  under  Chrysostom°  on  the  book- 25 
shelf;  and  if  any  ask  for  it,  say  I  keep  it  there,  and  told 
you  where  to  find  it,  if  you  had  need  to  go  to  my  room. 
The  descent  is  easy  down  the  wall  into  the  ditch ;  and  so, 
once  more  farewell,  until  I  see  thee  again,  my  dear  son." 
And  with  this  the  intrepid  Father  mounted  the  buffet  with  3° 
great  agility  and  briskness,  stepped  across  the  window, 
lifting  up  the  bars  and  framework  again  from  the  other 
side,  and  only  leaving  room  for  Harry  Esmond  to  stand  on 
tiptoe  and  kiss  his  hand  before  the  casement  closed,  the 
bars  fixing  as  firm  as  ever  seemingly  in  the  stone  arch  over-  35 
head.  When  Father  Holt  next  arrived  at  Castlewood, 
it  was  by  the  publick  gate  on  horseback ;  and  he  never  so 
much  as  alluded  to  the  existence  of  the  private  issue  to 
Harry,  except  when  he  had  need  of  a  private  messenger 


40  HENRY   ESMOND 

from  within,  for  which  end,   no  doubt,  he  had  instructed 
his  young  pupil  in  this  means  of  quitting  the  Hall. 

Esmond,  young  as  he  was,  would  have  died  sooner  than 
betray  his  friend  and  master,  as  Mr.  Holt  well  knew;    for 

5  he  had  tried  the  boy  more  than  once,  putting  temptations 
in  his  way  to  see  whether  he  would  yield  to  them  and  con- 
fess afterwards,  or  whether  he  would  resist  them,  ns  he  did 
sometimes,  or  whether  he  would  lie,  which  he  never  did.  Holt 
instructing  the  boy  on  this  jDoint,  however,  that  if  to  keep 

10  silence  is  not  to  he,  as  it  certainly  is  not,  yet  silence  is  after 
all  equivalent  to  a  negation  —  and  therefore  a  downright 
No,  in  the  interest  of  justice  or  your  friend,  and  in  reply 
to  a  question  that  may  be  prejudicial  to  either,  is  not  crim- 
inal, but,  on  the  contrary,  praiseworthy;    and  as  lawful  a 

15  way  as  the  other  of  eluding  a  wrongful  demand.  For  instance 
(says  he),  suppose  a  good  citizen,  who  had  seen  his  Majesty 
take  refuge  there,  had  been  asked,  ''  Is  King  Charles  up  that 
oak  tree  ? "  his  duty  would  have  been  not  to  say,  Yes  —  so 
that  the   Cromwellians  should  seize  the  King  and  murder 

20  him  hkc  his  father  —  but  No;  his  Majesty  being  private  in 
the  tree,  and  therefore  not  to  be  seen  there  b}^  loyal  eyes: 
all  which  instruction,  in  religion  and  morals,  as  well  as  in 
the  rudiments  of  the  tongues  and  sciences,  the  boy  took 
eagerly   and    with    gratitude    from   his   tutor.     When   then 

25  Holt  was  gone,  and  told  Harry  not  to  see  him,  it  was  as  if 
he  had  never  been.  And  he  had  this  answer  pat  when  he 
came  to  be  questioned  a  few  days  after. 

The  Prince  of  Orange  was  then  at  Salisbury,"  as  young 
Esmond  learned  from  seeing  Doctor  Tusher  in  h'.s  best  cas- 

30  sock  (though  the  roads  were  muddy,  and  he  never  was  known 
to  wear  his  silk,  only  his  stuff  one,  a-horseback),  with  a  great 
orange  co(;kade°  in  his  broad-leafed  hat,  and  Nahum,  his 
clerk, °  oi-namented  with  a  hke  decoration.  The  Doctor 
was  walking  up  and  down  in  front  of  his  jmrsonage  when 

35  little  I'^smond  saw  him,  and  heard  him  say,  he  was  going  to 
I)ay  his  duty  to  his  Highness  the;  Prince,  as  he  mounted 
his  ])ad  and  rode  away  with  Nahum  Ixjhind.  The  village 
p(H)ple  had  orange  cockadcis  too,  and  his  friend  the  black- 
sHjith's    laughing    daughter    pinned    one    into    Harry's    old 


HENRY   ESMOND  41 

hat,  which  he  tore  out  indignantly  when  they  bid  him  to 
cry,  "God  save  the  Prince  of  Orange  and  the  Protestant 
religion!"  but  the  people  only  laughed,  for  they  Uked  the 
boy  in  the  village,  where  his  solitary  condition  moved  the 
general  pity,  and  where  he  found  friendly  welcomes  and  S 
faces  in  many  houses.  Father  Holt  had  many  friends  there 
too,  for  he  not  only  would  fight  the  blacksmith  at  theology, 
never  losing  his  temper,  but  laughing  the  whole  time  in  his 
pleasant  way,  but  he  cured  him  of  an  ague  with  c|uinciuina,° 
and  was  always  ready  with  a  kind  word  for  any  man  that  xo 
asked  it,  so  that  they  said  in  the  village  ^twas  a  pity  the  two 
were  Papists. 

The  Director  and  the  Vicar  of  Castlewood  agreed  very 
well;  indeed,  the  former  was  a  perfectly  bred  gentleman, 
and  it  was  the  latter's  business  to  agree  wdth  everybody.  15 
Doctor  Tusher  and  the  lady's  maid,  his  spouse,  had  a  boy 
who  was  about  the  age  of  little  Esmond;  and  there  was 
such  a  friendship  between  the  lads,  as  propinc^uity  and 
tolerable  kindness  and  good-humour  on  either  side  would 
be  pretty  sure  to  occasion.  Tom  Tusher  was  sent  off  early  20 
however  to  a  school  in  London,  whither  his  father  took  him 
and  a  volume  of  sermons  in  the  first  year  of  the  reign  of 
King  James ;  and  Tom  returned  but  once,  a  year  afterwards,, 
to  Castlewood  for  many  years  of  his  scholastic  and  collegiate 
life.  Thus  there  was  less  danger  to  Tom  of  a  perversion  of  25 
his  faith  by  the  Director,  who  scarce  ever  saw  him,  than 
there  was  to  Harry,  who  constantly  was  in  the  Vicar's  com- 
pany; but  as  long  as  Harry's  religion  was  his  Majesty's, 
and  my  lord's,  and  my  lady's,  the  Doctor  said  gravely,  it 
should  not  be  for  him  to  disturb  or  disquiet  him :  it  was  30 
far  from  him  to  say  that  his  Majesty's  church  was  not  a 
branch  of  the  Catholic  church;  upon  which  Father  Holt 
used,  according  to  his  custom,  to  laugh  and  say,  that  the 
Holy  Church  throughout  all  the  world,  and  the  noble  army 
of  martyrs,  were  very  much  obliged  to  the  Doctor.  35 

It  was  while  Dr.  Tusher  was  away  at  Salisbury  that  there 
came  a  troop  of  dragoons  Mith  orange  scarfs,  and  quartered 
in  Castlewood,  and  some  of  them  came  up  to  the  Hall,  where 
they  took  possession,  robbing  nothing  however  beyond  the 


42  HENRY   ESMOND 

hen-house  and  the  beer-cellar ;  and  only  insisting  upon  going 
through  the  house  and  looking  for  papers.  The  first  room 
they  asked  to  look  at  was  Father  Holt's  room,  of  which 
Harry  Esmond  brought  the  key,  and  they  opened  the  drawers 
5  and  the  cupboards,  and  tossed  over  the  papers  and  clothes  — 
but  found  nothing  except  his  books  and  clothes,  and  the  vest- 
ments in  a  box  by  themselves,  with  which  the  dragoons 
made  merry  to  Harry  Esmond's  horror.  And  to  the  questions 
which  the  gentlemen  put  to  Harry,  he  replied,  that  Father 

lo  Holt  was  a  very  kind  man  to  him,  and  a  very  learned  man, 
and  Harry  supposed  would  tell  him  none  of  his  secrets,  if  he 
had  any.  He  was  about  eleven  years  old  at  this  tima,  and 
looked  as  innocent  as  boys  of  his  age. 

The  family  were  away  more  than  six  months,  and  when 

15  they  returned  they  were  in  the  deepest  state  of  dejection, 
for  King  James  had  been  banished,  the  Prince  of  Orange 
was  on  the  throne,  and  the  direst  persecutions  of  those  of  the 
Catholic  faith  were  apprehended  by  my  lady,  who  said  she 
did  not  believe  that  there  was  a  word  of  truth  in  the  promises 

2c  of  toleration  that  Dutch  monster°  made,  or  in  a  single  word 
the  perjured  wretch  said.  My  lord  and  lady  were  in  a  man- 
ner prisoners  in  their  own  house ;  so  her  ladyship  gave  the 
little  page  to  know,  who  was  by  this  time  growing  of  an 
age  to  understand  what  was  passing  about  him,  and  something 

25  of  the  characters  of  the  people  he  lived  with. 

''We  are  prisoners,"  says  she  ;  "in  everything  but  chains, 
we  are  prisoners.  Let  them  come,  let  them  consign  me  to  dun- 
geons, or  strike  off  my  head  from  this  poor  little  threat ''  (and 
she  clasj^ed  it  in  her  long  fingers) .    ''  The  blood  of  the  Esmonds 

30  will  always  How  freely  for  their  kings.  We  are  not  like  the 
C'hurchills  —  the  .]udases°  who  kiss  their  master  and  betray 
him.  We  know  how  to  suffer,  how  even  to  forgi\'e  in  the 
royal  cause"  (no  doubt  it  was  that  fatal  business  of  losing 
the  place  of  Groom  of  the   Posset  to  which  her  ladyship 

35  alluded,  as  she  did  half  a  dozen  times  in  the  day).  ''Let 
the  tyrant  of  Orange  bring  his  i-ack  and  his  odious  Dutch 
tortures  —  the  beast !  the  wretch  !  I  spit  upon  him  and  defy 
him.  (1ie(!rfully  will  I  lay  this  head  u})on  the  block;  cheer- 
fully will  1  accompany  my  lord  to  the  scaffold :   we  will  cry 


HENRY  ESMOND  43 

'God  save  King  James!'  with  our  dying  breath,  and  smile 
in  the  face  of  the  executioner."  And  she  told  her  page  a 
hundred  times  at  least  of  the  particulars  of  the  last  interview 
which  she  had  with  his  Majesty. 

"I  flung  myself  before  my  Liege's  feet,"  she  said,  "at  Sahs-  5 
bury.     I  devoted  myself  —  my  husband  —  my  house,  to  his 
cause.     Perhaps   he   remembered   old   times   when    Isabella 
Esmond  was  young  and  fair;    perhaps  he  recalled  the  day 
when  'twas  not  /  that  knelt  —  at  least  he  spoke  to  me  with 
a   voice    that    reminded    me   of    days    gone    by.      *  Egad ! '  10 
said  his  Majesty,  'you  should  go   to  the  Prince  of   Orange, 
if  you  want  anything.'     'No,  Sire,'  I  replied,  'I  would  not 
kneel  to  a  Usurper;    the  Esmond  that  would  have  served 
your  Majesty  will  never    be    groom  to  a  traitor's  posset.' 
The  royal  exile  smiled,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  misfortune;  15 
he   deigned   to   raise   me   with   words   of   consolation.     The 
Viscount,  my  husband,  himself,  could  not  be  angry,  at  the 
august  salute  with  which  he  honoured. me  !" 

The  publick  misfortune  had  the  effect  of  making  my  lord 
and  his  lady  better  friends  than  they  ever  had  been  since  their  20 
courtship.  ]\Iy  Lord  Viscount  had  shown  both  loyalty  and 
spirit ;  when  these  were  rare  qualities  in  the  dispirited  party 
about  the  King;  and  the  praise  he  got  elevated  him  not  a 
Httle  in  his  wife's  good  opinion,  and  perhaps  in  his  own.  He 
wakened  up  from  the  listless  and  supine  life  which  he  had  25 
been  leading ;  was  always  riding  to  and  fro  in  consultation 
with  this  friend  or  that  of  the  King's;  the  page  of  course 
knowing  little  of  his  doings,  but  remarking  only  his  greater 
cheerfulness  and  altered  demeanour. 

Father  Holt  came  to  the  Hall  constantly,  but  officiated  no  30 
longer  openly  as  Chaplain;  he  was  always  fetching  and 
carrying :  strangers  military  and  ecclesiastick  (Harry  knew 
the  latter  though  they  came  in  all  sorts  of  disguises)  were 
continually  arriving  and  departing.  ]\Iy  lord  made  long 
absences  and  sudden  reappearances,  using  sometimes  the  35 
means  of  exit  which  Father  Holt  had  emploA'ed,  though 
how  often  the  little  window  in  the  Chaplain's  room  let  in  or 
let  out  my  lord  and  his  friends,  Harry  could  not  tell.  He 
stoutly  kept  his  promise  to  the  Father  of  not  prying,  and  if 


44  EEN'nY   ESMOND 

Sit  midnight  from  his  Httle  room  he  heard  noises  of  persom 
stirring  in  the  next  chamber,  he  turned  round  to  the  wall 
and  hid  his  curiosity  under  his  pillow  until  it  fell  asleep. 
Of  course  he  could  not  help  remarking  that  the  priest's 
5  journeys  were  constant,  and  understanding  by  a  hundred 
signs  that  some  active  though  secret  business  employed 
him:  what  this  was  may  pretty  well  be  guessed  by  what 
soon  happened  to  my  lord. 

No  garrison  or  watch  was  put  into  Castlewood  when  my 

lo  lord  came  back,  but  a  guard  was  in  the  village ;  and  one  or 
other  of  them  was  always  on  the  Green  keeping  a  look-out 
on  our  great  gate,  and  those  who  went  out  and  in.  Lockwood 
said  that  at  night  especially  every  person  who  came  in  or 
went  out  was  watched  by  the  outlying  sentries.     Twas  lucky 

15  that  we  had  a  gate  which  their  worships  knew  nothing 
about.  My  lord  and  Father  Holt  must  have  made  constant 
journeys  at  night :  once  or  twice  little  Harry  acted  as  their 
messenger  and  discreet  little  aide-de-camp  °  He  remembers 
he  was  bidden  to  go  into  the  village  with  his  fishing-rod, 

-20  enter  certain  houses,  ask  for  a  drink  of  water,  and  tell  the 
good  man,  "there  would  be  a  horse-market  at  Newbury 
next  Thursday,"  and  so  carry  the  same  message  on  to  the 
next  house  on  his  list. 

He  did  not  know  what  the  message  meant  at  the  time; 

25  nor  what  was  happening:  which  may  as  well,  however,  for 
clearness'  sake,  be  explained  here.  The  Prince  of  Orange 
being  gone  to  Ireland,  where  the  King  was  ready  to  meet 
him  with  a  great  army,  it  was  determined  that  a  great  rising 
of  his  Majesty's  party  should  take  place  in  this  country; 

jo  and  my  lord  was  to  head  the  force  in  our  county.  Of  late 
he  had  taken  a  greater  lead  in  affairs  than  before,  having 
the  indefatigable  Mr.  Holt  at  his  elbow,  and  my  Lady  Vis- 
countess strongly  urging  him  on ;  and  my  Lord  Sark  being 
in  the  Tower  a  prisoner,  and  Sir  Wilmot  Crawlcy,°  of  Queen's 

55  Crawley,  having  gone  over  to  the  Prince  of  Orange's  side  — 
my  lord  became  the  most  considerable  person  in  our  part 
of  the  county  for  the  affairs  of  the  King. 

It  was  arranged  that  the  regiuKint  of  S('ots°  Greys  and 
Dragoons  then  quartered  at  Newbury,  should  declare  for  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  45 

King  on  a  certain  day,  when  likewise  the  gentry  affected 
to  his  Majesty's  cause  were  to  come  in  with  their  tenants 
and  adherents  to  Newbury, °  march  upon  the  Dutch  troops 
at  Reading  under  Ginckel°;  and,  these  overthrown,  and 
their  indomitable  Uttle  master  away  in  Ireland,  'twas  thought  5 
that  our  side  might  move  on  London  itself,  and  a  confident 
victory  was  predicted  for  the  King. 

As  these  great  matters  were  in  agitation,   my  lord  lost 
his  Hstless  manner  and  seemed  to  gain  health ;   my  lady  did 
not  scold  him,   Mr.   Holt   came  to   and  fro,   busy  always;  ig 
and  Httle  Harry  longed  to  have  been  a  few  inches  taller,  that 
he  might  draw  a  sword  in  this  good  cause. 

One  day,  it  must  have  been  about  the  month  of  July  1690, 
my  lord,  in  a  great  horseman's  coat  under  which  Harry 
could  see  the  shining  of  a  steel  breastplate  he  had  on,  called  15 
little  Harry  to  him,  put  the  hair  off  the  child's  forehead,  and 
kissed  him,  and  bade  God  bless  him  in  such  an  affectionate 
way,  as  he  never  had  used  before.  Father  Holt  blessed  him 
too,  and  then  they  took  leave  of  my  Lady  Viscountess,  who 
came  from  her  apartment  with  a  pocket-handkerchief  to  20 
her  eyes,  and  her  gentlewoman  and  Mrs.  Tusher  supporting 
her. 

"You  are  going  to  —  to  ride,"  says  she  —  "Oh,  that  I 
might  come  too !  —  but  in  my  situation  I  am  forbidden 
horse  exercise."  25 

"We  kiss  my  Lady  Marchioness's  hand,"  says  Mr.  Holt. 

"My  lord,  God  speed  you  !"  she  said,  stepping  up  and  em- 
bracing my  lord  in  a  grand  manner.  "Mr.  Holt,  I  ask  your 
blessing,"  and  she  knelt  down  for  that,  whilst  ^Irs.  Tusher 
tossed  her  head  up.  .    3c 

^Ir.  Holt  gave  the  same  benediction  to  the  little  page, 
who  went  down  and  held  my  lord's  stirrups  for  him  to 
mount ;  there  were  two  servants  waiting  there  too  —  and 
they  rode  out  of  Castle  wood  gate. 

As  they  crossed  the  bridge  Harry  could  see  an  officer  in  35 
scarlet  ride  up  touching  his  hat,  and  address  my  lord. 

The  party  stopped,  and  came  to  some  parley  or  discussion, 
which  presently  ended,  my  lord  putting  his  horse  into  a 
canter  after  taking  off  his  hat  and  making  a  bow  to  the  officer 


46  HENRY   ESMOND 

i 
who  rode  alongside  him  step  for  step :  the  trooper  accom- 
panying him,  falling  back,  and  riding  with  my  lord's  two 
men.  They  cantered  over  the  Green,  and  behind  the  elms 
(my  lord  waving  his  hand  Harry  thought),  and  so  they  dis- 
5  appeared. 

That  evening  we  had  a  great  panick,  the  cow-boy  coming  at 
milking-time  riding  one  of  our  horses,  which  he  had  found 
grazing  at  the  outer  park  wall. 

All  night  my  Lady  Viscountess  was  in  a  very  quiet  and  sub- 

10  dued   mood.     She   scarce   found   fault   with   anybody;    she 

played  at  cards  for  six  hours;    little  page  Esmond  went  to 

sleep.     He  prayed  for  my  lord  and  the  good  cause  before 

closing  his  eyes. 

It  was  quite  in  the  grey  of  the  morning,  when  the  porter's 
15  bell  rang,  and  old  Lockwood  waking  up,  let  in  one  of  my 
lord's  servants,  who  had  gone  with  him  in  the  morning,  and 
who  returned  with  a  melancholy  story. 

The  officer  who  rode  up  to  my  lord  had,  it  appeared,  said  to 
him,  that  it  was  his  duty  to  inform  his  lordship  that  he  was 
20  not  under   arrest,   but   under   surveillance,    and  to   request 
him  not  to  ride  abroad  that  day. 

My  lord  replied  that  riding  was  good  for  his  health,  that  if 
the  Captain  chose  to  accompany  him  he  w^as  welcome,  and 
it  was  then  that  he  made  a  bow,  and  they  cantered  away 
25  together. 

When  he  came  on  to  Wansey  Down,  my  lord  all  of  a  sudden 
jnillod  up,  and  the  party  came  to  a  halt  at  the  cross-way. 
''Sir,"  says  he  to  the  officer,  ''we  are  four  to  two;  will  you 
be  so  kind  as  to  take  that  road,  and  leave  me  to  go  mine?" 
30      "Your  road  is  mine,  my  lord,"  says  the  officer. 

"Then "  says  my  lord ;   but  he  had  no  time  to  say 

more,  for  the  officer,  drawing  a  i)istol,  sna{)i)ed  it  at  his  lord- 
ship; as  at  the  same  moment.  Father  Holt,  drawing  a  pistol, 
shot  the  officer  through  the  head. 
35  It  was  done,  and  the  man  dead  in  an  instant  of  time. 
The  orderly,  gazing  at  the  officer,  looked  scared  for  a  moment, 
and  galloped  away  for  his    life. 

"Fire!  fire!"  cries  out  Father  Holt,  sending  another 
shot  after  the  trooper,  but  the  two  servants  were  too  much 


HENRY   ESMOND  47 

surprised  to  use  their  pieces,  and  my  lord  calling  to  them  to 
hold  their  hands,  the  fellow  got  away. 

"Mr.  Holt,  qui  pensait  a  tout,°"  says  Blaise,  "gets  off  his 
horse,  examines  the  pockets  of  the  dead  officer  for  papers, 
gives  his  money  to  us  two,  and  says,    'The  wine  is  drawn,  5 
M.  le  Marquis,'  °  —  why  did  he  say  Marquis  to  M.  le  Vicomte  ? 
—  'we  must  drink  it.' 

"The  poor  gentleman's  horse  was  a  better  one  than  that 
I  rode,"  Blaise  continues;  "Mr.  Holt  bids  me  get  on  him, 
and  so  I  gave  a  cut  to  Whitefoot,  and  she  trotted  home.  la 
We  rode  on  towards  Newbury;  we  heard  firing  towards 
midday:  at  two  o'clock  a  horseman  comes  up  to  us  as  we 
vvere  giving  our  cattle  water  at  an  inn  —  and  says,  all  is 
done.  The  Ecossais°  declared  an  hour  too  soon  —  General 
Ginckel  was  down  upon  them.    The  whole  thing  was  at  an  end.  15 

"'And  we've  shot  an  officer  on  duty,  and  let  his  orderly 
escape,'  says  my  lord. 

"'Blaise,'    says  Mr.  Holt,  writing  two  lines  on  his  table- 
book,   one  for  my  lady,   and  one  for  you,   Master  Harry; 
'you   must  go  back  to  Castle  wood,  and  deliver  these,'  and  20 
behold  me." 

And  he  gave  Harry  the  two  papers.  He  read  that  to  him- 
self, which  only  said,  "  Burn  the  papers  in  the  cupboard,  burn 
this.  You  know  nothing  about  anything."  Harry  read  this, 
ran  upstairs  to  his  mistress's  apartm.ent,  where  her  gentle-  25 
woman  slept  near  to  the  door,  made  her  bring  a  light  and 
wake  my  lady,  into  whose  hands  he  gave  the  paper.  She  was  a 
wonderful  object  to  look  at  in  her  night  attire,  nor  had  Harry 
ever  seen  the  like. 

As  soon  as  she  had  the  paper  in  her  hand,  Harry  stepped  30 
back  to  the  Chaplain's  room,  opened  the  secret  cupboard 
over  the  fireplace,  burned  all  the  papers  in  it,  and  as  lie  had 
seen  the  priest  do  before,  took  down  one  of  his  reverence's 
manuscript  sermons,  and  half  burnt  that  in  the  brazier. 
By  the  time  the  papers  were  quite  destroyed,  it  was  daylight.  35 
Harry  ran  back  to  his  mistress  again.  Her  gentlewoman 
ushered  him  again  into  her  ladyship's  chamber:  she  told 
him  (from  behind  her  nuptial  curtains)  to  bid  the  coach  be 
got  ready,  and  that  she  would  ride  away  anon. 


48  HENRY   ESMOND 

But  the  mysteries  of  her  ladyship's  toilette  were  as  awfuU^^ 
long  on  this  day  as  on  any  other,  and  long  after  the  coach 
was  ready,  my  lady  was  still  attiring  herself.  And  just  as  the 
Viscountess  stepped  forth  from  her  room,  ready  for  depart- 
ure, young  Job  Lockwood  comes  running  up  from  the  village 
with  news  that  a  lawyer,  three  officers,  and  twenty  or  four- 
and-twenty  soldiers,  were  marching  thence  upon  the  house. 
Job  had  but  two  minutes  the  start  of  them,  and  ere  he  had 
well  told  his  story,  the  troop  rode  into  our  courtyard. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ISSUE  OF  THE  PLOTS  —  THE  DEATH  OF  THOMAS,  THIRD 
VISCOUNT  OF  CASTLEWOOD  :  AND  THE  IMPRISONMENT  OF 
HIS  VISCOUNTESS 

lo  At  first  my  lady  was  for  dying  like  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots° 
(to  whom  she  fancied  she  bore  a  resemblance  in  beauty), 
and,  stroking  her  scraggy  neck,  said,  ''  They  will  find  Isabel 
of  Castle  wood  is  equal  to  her  fate."  Her  gentlewoman, 
Victoire,  persuaded  her  that  her  prudent  course  was,  as  she 

15  could  not  fly,  to  receive  the  troops  as  though  she  suspected 
nothing,  and  that  her  chamber  was  the  best  place  wherein 
to  await  them.  So  her  black  Japan  casket  which  Harry 
was  to  carry  to  the  coach  was  taken  back  to  her  ladyship's 
chamber,  whither  the  maid  and  mistress  retired.     Victoire 

20  came  out  presently,  bidding  the  page  to  say  her  ladyship 
was  ill,  (confined  to  her  bed  with  the  rheumatism. 

J3y  this  time  the  soldiers  had  reached  Castlewood.  Harry 
Esmond  saw  them  from  the  wind(5w  of  the  tapestry  parlour° ; 
a  coupki  of  sentinels  were  posted  at  the  gate  —  a  half-dozen 

25  more  walked  towards  the  stable ;   and  some  others,  preceded 

by  their  commander,  and  a  man  in  black,  a  lawyer  probably, 

were  conducted  by  one  of   the  servants  to  the  stair  leading 

up  to  the  part  of  the  house  which  my  loi-d  and  lady  inhabited. 

So  the  Captain,  a  handsome  kind  man,  and  the  lawyer, 

30  came  through  the  juiteroom  to  the  tapestry  parlour,  and 
where  now  was  nobody  but  young  Harry  Esmond,  the  page. 


HENRY   ESMOND  49 

"Tell  your  mistress,  little  man/'  says  the  Captain,  kindly 
"that  we  must  speak  to  her." 

"My  mistress  is  ill  a-becl,"  said  the  page. 

"What  complaint  has  she?"  asked  the  Captain. 

The  boy  said  "  the  rheumatism  !"  5 

"Rheumatism!  that's  a  sad  complaint,"  continues  the 
good-natured  Captain :  "and  the  coach  is  in  the  yard  to  fetch 
the  Doctor,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"I  don't  know,"  says  the  boy. 

"And  how  long  has  her  ladyship  been  ill?"  la 

"I  don't  know,"  says  the  boy. 

"  When  did  my  lord  go  away  ?  " 

"  Yesterday  night. " 

''With  Father  Holt?" 

"With  Mr.  Holt."  15 

"And  which  way  did  they  travel?"  asks  the  lawyer. 

"The}'  travelled  without  me,"  says  the  page. 

"We  must  see  Lady  Castlewood." 

"  I  have  orders  that  nobody  goes  in  to  her  ladyship  —  she 
^s  sick,"  says  the  page;   but  at  this  moment  Victoire  came  20 
out.     "Hush!"   says  she;  and,  as  if  not  knowing  that  any 
one  was  near,  "  What's  this  noise  ?  "  says  she.     "  Is  this  gentle- 
man the  Doctor?" 

"Stuff!  we  must  see  Lady  Castlewood,"  saj^s  the  lawyer, 
pushing  by.  25 

The  curtains  of  her  lad3'-ship's  room  were  down,  and  the 
chamber  dark,  and  she  was  in  bed  with  a  night-cap  on  her 
head,  and  propped  up  by  her  pillows,  looking  none  the  less 
ghastly  because  of  the  red  which  was  still  on  her  cheeks,  and 
which  she  could  not  afford  to  forgo.  30 

"Is  that  the  Doctor?"  she  said. 

"There  is  no  use  with  this  deception,  madam,"  Captain 
Westbury  said  (for  so  he  was  named).  "My  duty  is  to  arrest 
the  person  of  Thomas,  Viscount  Castlewood,  a  non-juring" 
peer  —  of  Robert  Tusher,  Vicar  of  Castlewood,  and  Henry  35 
Holt,  known  under  various  other  names  and  designa- 
tions, a  Jesuit-priest,  who  officiated  as  chaplain  here  in  the 
late  king's  time,  and  is  now  at  the  head  of  the  conspir- 
acy which  was  about  to  break  out  in  this  country  aorainst 


50  HENRY   ESMOND 

the  authority  of  their  Majesties  King  Wilham  and  Queen  Mary 
—  and  my  orders  are  to  search  the  house  for  such  papers  or 
traces  of  the  conspiracy  as  may  be  found  here.  Your  lady- 
ship will  please  to  give  me  your  keys,  and  it  will  be  as  well  for 
5  yourself  that  you  should  help  us,  in  every  way,  in  our  search/' 
''You  see,  sir,  that  I  have  the  rheumatism,  and  cannot 
move,"  said  the  lady,  looking  uncommonly  ghastly  as  she 
sat  up  in  her  bed,  where  however  she  had  had  her  cheeks 
painted,  and  a  new  cap  put  on,  so  that  she  might  at  least 

10  look  her  best  when  the  officers  came. 

"I  shall  take  leave  to  place  a  sentinel  in  the  chaml^er,  so 
that  your  ladyship,  in  case  you  should  wish  to  rise,  may  have 
an  arm  to  lean  on,"  Captain  Westbury  said.  ''Your  woman 
will  show  me  where  I  am  to  look;"  and  Madame  Victoire, 

15  chattering  in  her  half  French  and  half  English  jargon,  opened, 
while  the  Captain  examined,  one  drawer  after  another; 
but,  as  Harry  Esmond  thought,  rather  carelessly,  with  a 
smile  on  his  face,  as  if  he  was  only  conducting  the  examina- 
tion for  form's  sake. 

20  Before  one  of  the  cupboards  Victoire  flung  herself  down^ 
stretching  out  her  arms,  and  with  a  piercing  shriek  cried, 
"Non,  jamais.  Monsieur  Tofficier !  jamais® !  I  will  rather 
die  than  let  you  see  this  wardrobe." 

But  Captain  Westbury  would  open  it,  still  with  a  smile  on 

25  his  face,  which,  when  the  box  was  opened,  turned  into  a  fair 
burst  of  laughter.  It  contained  —  not  papers  regarding 
the  conspiracy  —  but  my  lady's  wigs,  washes,  and  rougo-pots, 
and  Victoire  said  men  were  monsters,  as  the  Caj)tain  went 
on  with  his  perquisition.     He  tapped  the  back  to  see  whether 

30  or  no  it  was  hollow,  and  as  he  thrust  his  hands  into  the  cup- 
board, my  lady  from  her  bed  called  out  with  a  voice  that 
did  not  sound  like  that  of  a  very  sick  woman:  "Is  it  your 
commission  to  insult  ladies  as  well  as  to  arrest  gentlemen, 
(  ai)tain  ?" 

35  "These  articles  are  only  dangerous  when  worn  by  your 
ladyship,"  the  Captain  said  with  a  low  bow,  and  a  mock 
grin  of  politeness.  "I  have  found  nothing  which  concerns 
the  Government  as  yet  —  only  the  weapons  with  which 
beauty  is  authorised  to  kill,"  says  he,  pointing  to  a  wig  with 


HENRY   ESMOND  51 

his  sword-tip.     ''We must  now  proceed  to  search  the  rest  of 
the  house." 

''You  are  not  going  to  leave  that  wretch  in  the  room  with 
me/'  cried  my  lady,  pointing  to  the  soldier. 

"What  can  I  do,  madam?     Somebody  you  must  have  to  5 
smooth    your    pillow    and     bring    your    medicine  —  permit 
me " 

"  Sir  I "  screamed  out  my  lady. 

"Madam,  if  you  are  too  ill  to  leave  the  bed,"  the  Captain 
then  said,  rather  sternly,  "  I  must  have  in  four  of  my  men  to  10 
lift  you  off  in  the  sheet :  I  must  examine  this  bed,  in  a  word; 
papers  may  be  hidden  in  a  bed  as  elsewhere ;   we  know  that 
"very  well,  and  —  " 

Here  it  was  her  ladyship's  turn  to  shriek,  for  the  Captain, 
with  his  fist  shaking  the  pillows  and  bolsters,  at  last  came  to  15 
"burn,"  as  they  say  in  the  play  of  forfeits, °  and  wrenching 
away  one  of  the  pillows,  said,  "Look!   did  not  I  tell  you  so? 
Here  is  a  pillow  stuffed  with  paper." 

"Some  villain  has  betrayed  us,"  cried  out  my  lady,  sitting 
up  in  the  bed,  showing  herself  full  dressed  under  her  night-  20 
Tail.° 

"And  now  your  ladyship  can  move  I  am  sure;   permit  me 
to  give  you  my  hand  to  rise.     You  will  have  to  travel  for 
some    distance,    as    far    as    Hexton   Castle,   to-night.     Will 
you  have  your  coach?     Your  woman  shall  attend  you  it  2,- 
you  hke  —  and  the  japan-box°?" 

"Sir  !     You  don't  strike  a  man  when  he  is  down,"  said  m}' 
lady,  with  some  dignity :  "  can  you  not  spare  a  woman  ?" 

"Your  ladyship  must  please  to  rise  and  let  me  search  the 
bed,"  said  the  Captain;   "there  is  no  more  time  to  lose  in  3° 
bandying  talk." 

And  without  more  ado,  the  gaunt  old  woman  got  up. 
Harry  Esmond  recollected  to  the  end  of  his  life  that  figure, 
with  the  brocade  dress  and  the  white  night-rail,  and  the 
gold-clocked°  red  stockings,  and  white  ,red-heeled  shoes  35 
sitting  up  in  the  bed,  and  stepping  down  from  it.  The 
trunks  were  ready  packed  for  departure  in  her  anteroom, 
and  the  horses  ready  harnessed  in  the  stable :  about  all 
which   the   Captain   seemed   to   know,    by   information   got 


52  HENRY    ESMOND 

from  some"  quarter  or  other;  and,  whence,  Esmond 
could  make  a  pretty  shrewd  guess  in  after  times,  when  Dr. 
Tusher  complained  that  King  WiUiam's  Government  had 
basely  treated  him  for  services  done  in  that  cause. 
5  And  here  he  may  relate,  though  he  was  then  too  young  to 
know  all  that  was  happening,  what  the  papers  contained,  of 
which  Captain  Westbury  had  made  a  seizure,  and  which 
papers  had  been  transferred  from  the  japan-box  to  the  bed 
when  tne  officers  arrived. 

10  There  was  a  list  of  gentlemen  of  the  county  in  Father 
Holt's  handwriting,  —  Mr.  Freeman's  (King  James's)  friends, 
—  a  similar  paper  being  found  among  those  of  Sir  John 
Fenwick°  and  Mr.  Coplestone  who  suffered  death  for  this 
conspiracy. 

15  There  was  a  patent  conferring  the  title  of  Marquis  of 
Esmond  on  my  Lord  Castlewood,  and  the  heirs  male  of  his 
body;  his  appointment  as  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  County,° 
and  Major-General.^ 

There  were  various  letters  from  the  nobility  and  gentry, 

20  some  ardent  and  some  doubtful,  in  the  King's  service ;  and 
(very  luckily  for  him)  two  letters  concerning  Colonel  Francis 
Esmond  :  one  from  Father  Holt,  which  said,  "  I  have  been  to 
see  this  Colonel  at  his  house  at  Walcote  near  to  Wells,  where 
he  resides  since  the  King's  departure,  and  pressed  him  very 

25  eagerly  in  Mr.  Freeman's  cause,  showing  him  the  great 
advantage  he  would  have  by  trading  with  that  merchant, 
offering  him  large  premiums  there  as  agreed  between  us. 
But  he  says  no :  he  considers  Mr.  Freeman  the  head  of  the 
firm,  will  never  trade  against  him  or  embark  with  any  other 

30  trading  company,  but  considers  his  duty  was  done  when  Mr. 
Freeman   left   England.     This  Colonel  seems  to   eare   more 

'  To  have  this  rank  of  Maniviis  restored  in  the  family  iiad  always 
been  niy  Lady  Vi.scounless's  ambition  ;  and  her  old  maiden  aunt,  Bar- 
bara Topham,  tlu!  p;old.smi til's  dan^;hter,  dyinp;  about  this  time,  and 
leaving  all  her  property  to  Lady  Castlewood,  1  have  heard  that  her 
ladyship  sent  almost  the  whole  of  the  money  to  King  James,  a  pro- 
ceeding which  so  irritated  my  L(jrd  Castlewood  that  he  actually  went 
to  the  parish  church,  anrl  was  only  appeased  by  the  Marfjuis's  tJtle 
which  his  exiled  Majesty  sent  to  him  in  return  for  the  £15,000  his 
faithful  subject  lent  him. 


HENRY   ESMOND  53 

for  his  wife  and  his  beagles  than  for  affairs.  He  asked  me 
ihueh  about  young  H.  E.,  'that  bastard'  as  he  called  him: 
doubting  my  lord's  intentions  respecting  him.  I  reassured 
him  on  this  head,  stating  what  I  knew  of  the  lad,  and  our 
intentions  respecting  him,  but  with  regard  to  Freeman  he  5 
was  inflexible." 

And  another  letter  was  from  Colonel  Esmond  to  his  kins- 
man, to  say  that  one  Captain  Holton  had  been  with  him 
offering  him  large  bribes  to  join  you  know  who,  and  saying 
that  the  head  of  the  house  of  Castle  wood  was  deeply  engaged  ic 
in  that  quarter.  But  for  his  part  he  had  broke  his  sword 
when  the  K.°  left  the  country,  and  would  never  again  fight 
in  that  quarrel.  The  P.  of  0.°  was  a  man,  at  least,  of  a 
noble  courage,  and  his  duty  and,  as  he  thought,  every  Eng- 
lishman's, was  to  keep  the  country  quiet,  and  the  French  15 
out  of  it :  and,  in  fine,  that  he  would  have  nothing  to  do  with 
the  scheme. 

Of  the  existence  of  these  two  letters  and  the  contents  of  the 
pillow.  Colonel  Frank  Esmond,  who  became  Viscount  Castle- 
wood,  told  Henry  Esmond  afterwards,  when  the  letters  20 
were  shown  to  his  lordship,  who  congratulated  himself,  as 
he  had  good  reason,  that  he  had  not  joined  in  the  scheme 
which  proved  so  fatal  to  many  concerned  in  it.  But7, 
naturally,  the  lad  knew  little  about  these  circumstances 
when  they  happened  under  his  eyes :  only  being  aware  that  25 
his  patron  and  his  mistress  were  in  some  trouble,  which  had 
caused  the  flight  of  the  one,  and  the  apprehension  of  the 
other  by  the  officers  of  King  William. 

The  seizure  of  the  papers  effected,  the  gentlemen  did  not 
pursue  their  further  search  through  Castlewood  House  very  30 
rigorously.  They  examined  Mr.  Holt's  room,  being  led 
thither  by  his  pupil,  who  showed,  as  the  Father  had  b'dden 
nim,  the  place  where  the  key  of  his  chamber  lay,  opened 
the  door  for  the  gentlemen,  and  conducted  them  into  the 
room.  35 

When  the  gentlemen  came  to  the  half-burned  papers  in  the 
brazier,  they  examined  them  eagerly  enough,  and  their 
young  guide  was  a  little  amused  at  their  perplexity. 

"  VVhat  are  these?"  says  one. 


64  HENRY   ESMOND     ' 

^'They're  written  in  a  foreign  language,"  says  the  lawyer 
''What  are  you  laughing  at,  little  whelp?''  adds  he,  turning 
round  as  he  saw  the  boy  smile. 

"Mr.  Holt  said  they  were  sermons,"  Harry  said,  "and  bade 
5  me  to  burn  them ; "   which  indeed  was  true  of  those  papers. 

''Sermons  indeed  —  it's  treason,  I  would   lay  a   wager," 
cries  the  law3'er. 

"Egad  !  it's  Greek  to  me,"  says  Captain  Westbury.     "Can 
you  read  it,  little  boy?" 
lo      "Yes,  sir,  a  Httle,"  Harry  said. 

"Then  read,  and  read  in  EngUsh,  sir,  on  your  peril,"  said 
the  lawyer.     And  Harry  began  to  translate  : 

"Hath  not  one  of  your  own  writers°  said, 'The  children 
of  Adam  are  now  labouring  as  much  as  he  himself  ever  did, 
15  about  this  tree  of  the  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  shaking 
the  boughs  thereof,  and  seeking  the  fruit,  being  for  the  most 
part  unmindful  of  the  tree  of  life.'  O  blind  generation! 
'tis  this  tree  of  knowledge  to  which  the  serpent  has  led 
you"  —and  here  the  boy  was  obliged  to  stop,  the  rest  of  the 
20  page  being  charred  by  the  fire :  and  asked  of  the  lawyer  — 
"Shall  I  go  on,  sir?" 

The  lawyer  said  —  "This  boy  is  deeper  than  he  seems: 
who  knows  that  he  is  not  laughing  at  us?" 

"Let's  have  in  Dick  the  Scholar, °  "  cried  Captain  Westbury, 
25  laughing :   and  he  called  to  a  trooper  out  of  the  window  — 
"Ho,  Dick,  come  in  here  and  construe." 

A  thi(;k-set  soldier,   with  a  square  good-humoured   face, 
came  in  at  the  summons,  saluting  his  officer. 

"Tell  us  what  is  this,  Dick,"  says  the  lawyer. 
30      "  My  name  is  Steele,  sir,"  says  the  soldier.     "  I  may  be  Dick 
for  my  friends,  but  I  don't  name  gentlemen  of  your  cloth 
amongst  them." 

"Well  then,  Steele." 

"  Mr,  Steele,  sir,  if  you  please.     When  you  address  a  gentle- 
35  man  of  his  Majesty's  Horse  Guards,  be  pleased  not  to  be  so 
familiar." 

"I  didn't  know,  sir,"  said  the  lawyer. 

"How  should  you?     I  take  it  you  are  not  accustomed  to 
meet  with  gentlemen,"  says  the  trooper. 


HENRY   ESMOND  55 

"Hold  thy  prate,  and  read  that  bit  of  paper,"  says  West- 
bury. 

*"Tis  Latin,"  says  Dick,  glancing  at  it,  and  again  saluting 
his  officer,  ''and  from  a  sermon  of  Mr.  Cudworth's,"  and  he 
translated  the  words  pretty  much  as  Henry  Esmond  had  5 
rendered  them. 

"What  a  young  scholar  you  are  !"  says  the  Captain  to  the 
boy. 

"Depend  on't,  he  knows  more  than  he  tells,"  saj-sthe  law- 
yer.    "I  think  we  will  pack  him  off  in  the  coach  with  old  ic 
Jezebel." 

" For  construing  a  bit  of  Latin?"  said  the  Captain,  very 
good-naturedly. 

"I  would  as  lief  go  there  as  anywhere,"  Harry  Esmond 
said,  simply,  "for  there  is  nobody  to  care  for  me."  15 

There  must  have  been  something  touching  in  the  child's 
voice,  or  in  this  description  of  his  sohtude  —  for  the  Captain 
looked  at  him  very  good-naturedly,  and  the  trooper,  called 
Steele,  put  his  hand  kindly  on  the  lad's  head,  and  said  some 
words  in  the  Latin  tongue.  20 

"What  does  he  say?"  says  the  lawyer. 

"Faith,  ask  Dick  himself,"  cried  Captain  Westbury. 

"I  said  I  was  not  ignorant  of  misfortune  myself,  and  had 
learned  to  succour  the  miserable,  and  that's  not  your  trade, 
Mr.  Sheepskin, °"  said  the  trooper.  25 

^"  You  had  better  leave  Dick  the  Scholar  alone,  Mr.  Corbet," 
the  Captain  said.  And  Harry  Esmond,  always  touched  by 
a  kind  face  and  kind  word,  felt  very  grateful  to  this  good- 
natured  champion. 

The  horses  were  by  this  time  harnessed  to  the  coach ;  and  30 
the  Countess  and  Victoire  came  down  and  were  put  into 
the  vehicle.  This  woman,  who  quarrelled  with  Harry 
Esmond  all  day,  was  melted  at  parting  with  him,  and  called 
him  "dear  angel,"  and  "poor  infant,"  and  a  hundred  other 
names.  35 

The  Viscountess  giving  him  her  lean  hand  to  kiss,  bade 
him  always  be  faithful  to  the  house  of  Esmond.  "If  e^-il 
should  happen  to  my  lord,"  says  she,  "his  successor  I  trust 
will  be  found,  and  give  you  protection.     Situated  as  I  am 


56  HENRY   ESMOND 

they  will  not  dare  wreak  their  vengeance  on  me  noiv."  And 
she  kissed  a  medal  she  wore  with  great  fervour,  and  Henry 
Esmond  knew  not  in  the  least  what  her  meaning  was;  but 
hath  since  learned  that,  old  as  she  was,  she  was  for  ever 
5  expecting,  by  the  good  offices  of  saints  and  relics,  to  have  an 
heir  to  the  title  of  Esmond. 

Harry  Esmond  was  too  young  to  have  been  introduced 
into  the  secrets  of  politicks  in  which  his  patrons  were  im- 
plicated ;    for  they  put  but  few  questions  to  the  boy  (who  was 

10  little  of  stature,  and  looked  much  younger  than  his  age), 
and  such  questions  as  they  put  he  answered  cautiously 
enough,  and  professing  even  more  ignorance  than  he  had, 
for  which  his  examiners  willingly  enough  gave  him  credit. 
He  did  not  say  a  word  about  the  window  or  the  cupboard 

15  over  the  fireplace;  and  these  secrets  quite  escaped  the  eyes 
of  the  searchers. 

So  then  my  lady  was  consigned  to  her  coach,  and  sent  off 
to  Hexton,  with  her  woman  and  the  man  of  law  to  bear  her 
company,  a  couple  of  troopers  riding  on  either  side  of  the 

20  coach.  And  Harry  was  left  behind  at  the  Hall,  belonging 
as  it  were  to  nobody,  and  quite  alone  in  the  world.  The 
captain  and  a  guard  of  men  remained  in  possession  there : 
and  the  soldiers,  who  were  very  good-natured  and  kind, 
ate  my  lord's  mutton  and  drank  his  wine,  and  made  them- 

25  selves  comfortable,  as  they  well  might  do  in  such  pleasant 
quarters. 

The  captains  had  their  dinner  served  in  my  lord's  tapestry 
parlour,  and  poor  little  Harry  thought  his  duty  was  to  wait 
upon  Captain  Wcstbury's  chair,  as  his  custom  had  been  to 

30  serve  his  lord  when  he  sat  there. 

After  the  departure  of  the  Countess,  Dick  the  Scholar 
took  Harry  Esmond  under  his  special  protection,  and  would 
examine  him  in  his  humanities"  and  talk  to  him  both  of 
French  and  f^atin,  in  which  tongues  the  lad  found,  and  his 

35  new  friend  was  wilHng  enough  to  acknowledge,  that  be  was 
even  more  proficient  than  Scholar  Dick.  Hearing  that  he 
had  learned  them  from  a  Jesuit,  in  the  praise  of  whom  and 
whose  goodness  Harry  was  never  tired  of  speaking,  Dick^ 
rather  to  the  boy's  surprise,  who  began  to  have  an  nrjly 


HENRY   ESMOND  67 

shrewdness,  like  many  children  bred  up  alone,  showed  a 
great  deal  of  theological  science,  °  and  knowledge  of  the 
points  at  issue  between  the  two  churches;  so  that  he  and 
Harry  would  have  hours  of  controversy  together,  in  which 
the  boy  was  certainly  worsted  by  the  arguments  of  this  5 
singular  trooper.  "I  am  no  common  soldier,"  Dick  would 
say,  and  indeed  it  was  easy  to  see  by  his  learning,  breeding, 
and  many  accomplishments,  that  he  was  not  —  "I  am  of 
one  of  the  most  ancient  families  in  the  empire;  I  have  had 
my  education  at  a  famous  school, °  and  a  famous  univer-  lo 
sity;  I  learned  my  first  rudiments  o^  Latin  near  to  Smith- 
field,  in  London,  wiiere  the  martyrs  were  roasted.'' 

"You  hanged  as  many  of  ours,"  interposed  Harry;  "and, 
for  the  matter  of  persecution.  Father  Holt  told  me  that  a 
young  gentleman  of  Edinburgh,  eighteen  years  of  age,  15 
student  at  the  college  there,  was  hanged  for  heresy  only  last 
year,  though  he  recanted,  and  solemnl}^  asked  pardon  for 
his  errors." 

"Faith!   there   has  been  too  m.uch  persecution  on  both 
sides:  but  'twas  you  taught  us."  20 

"Xay,  'twas  the  Pagans  began  it,"  cried  the  lad,  and  began 
to  instance  a  number  of  saints  of  the  Church,  from  the  pro- 
tomartyr°  downwards  —  "this  one's  fu"e°  went  out  under 
him :  that  one's  oil  cooled  in  the  cauldron :  at  a  third  holy 
head  the  executioner  chopped  three  times  and  it  would  not  2  c; 
come  off.  Show  us  martyrs  in  your  church  for  whom  such 
miracles  have  been  done." 

"Nay,"  says  the  trooper  gravely,  "the  miracles  of  the  first 
three  centuries  belong  to  my  church  as  well  as  yours,  Master 
Papist,"  and  then  added,  with  something  of  a  smile  upon  his  3< 
countenance,  and  a  queer  look  at  Harry  —  "And  yet,  my 
little  catechiser,  I  have  sometimes  thought  about  those 
miracles,  that  there  was  not  much  good  in  them,  since  the 
victim's,  head  always  finished  by  coming  off  at  the  third  or 
fourth  chop,  and  the  cauldron  if  it  dicl  not  boil  one  day,  J 
boiled  the  next.  Howbeit,  in  our  times,  the  Church  has  lost 
that  questionable  advantage  of  respites.  There  was  never  a 
shower  to  put  out  Ridley's  fire,°  nor  an  angel  to  turn  the 
edge  of  Campion's  axe.°     The  rack  tore  the  limbs  of  South- 


58  HENRY   ESMOND 

well  the  Jesuit°  and  Sympson  the  Protestant"  alike.  Foi 
faith,  everywhere  multitudes  die  willingly  enough.  I  have 
read  in  Monsieur  Rycaut's  History  of  the  Turks  °  of  thousands 
of  Mahomet's  followers  rushing  upon  death  in  battle  as  upon 
5  certain  Paradise, °  and  in  the  great  Mogul's  dominions"  people 
fling  themselves  by  hundreds  under  the  cars  of  the  idols 
annually,  and  the  widows  burn  themselves  on  their  husbands' 
bodies,  as  'tis  well  known.  'Tis  not  the  dying  for  a  faith 
that's  so  hard,  Master  Harry  —  every  man  of  every  nation 

10  has  done  that  -  'tis  the  living  up  to  it  that  is  difficult,  as  I 
know  to  my  cost,"  he  added  with  a  sigh.  "And  ah!  "  he 
added,  "  my  poor  lad,  I  am  not  strong  enough  to  convince 
thee  by  my  life  —  though  to  die  for  my  religion  would  give 
me  the  greatest  of  joys  —  but  I  had  a  dear  friend  in  Mag- 

15  dalen  College"  in  Oxford ;  I  wish  Joe  Addison"  were  here  to 
convince  thee,  as  he  quickly  could  —  for  I  think  he's  a  match 
for  the  whole  College"  of  Jesuits;  and  what's  more,  in  his 
life  too.  —  In  that  very  sermon  of  Doctor  Cudworth's  which 
your  priest  was  quoting  from,  and  which  suffered  martyrdom 

20  in  the  brazier,"  Dick  added  with  a  smile,  "  I  had  a  thought  of 
wearing  the  black  coat"  (but  was  ashamed  of  my  life  you 
see,  and  took  to  this  sorry  red  one)  —  I  have  often  thought  of 
Joe  Addison  —  Doctor  Cudworth  says  'A  good  conscience  is 
the  best  looking-glass  of  hbaven'  —  and  there's  a  serenity  in 

25  my  friend's  face  which  always  reflects  it  —  I  wish  you  could 
see  him,  Harry." 

"  Did  he  do  you  a  great  deal  of  good  ?  "  asked  the  lad,  simply. 

''  He  might  have  done,"  said  the  other  —  "  at  least  he  taught 

me  to  see  and  approve  better  things.     'Tis  my  own  fault, 

30  deter iora  sequi.°  " 

"You  seem  very  good,"  the  boy  said. 

"I'm  not  what  I  seem,  alas  !"  answered  the  trooper  —  and 
indeed,  as  it  turned  out,  poor  Dick  told  the  truth  —  for  that 
very  night,  at  su})per  in  the  hall,  where  the -gentlemen  of  the 

35  troop  took  their  re[)asts,  and  passed  most  i)art  of  their  days 
dicing  and  smoking  of  tobacco,  and  singing  and  cursing,  over 
the  Castlewood  ale  —  Harry  lOsmond  found  Dick  the  Scholar 
in  a  woful  state  of  drunkenness.  He  hiccupjK'd  out  a  sermon  ; 
and  his  laughing  companions  bade  him  sing  a  hymn,  on 


HENRY   ESMOND  59 

which  Dick,  swearing  he  would  run  the  scoundrel  through  the 
body  who  insulted  his  religion,  made  for  his  sword,  which 
was  hanging  on  the  wall,  and  fell  down  flat  on  the  floor  under 
it,  saying  to  Harry,  who  ran  forward  to  help  him,  "Ah,  httle 
Papist,  I  wish  Joseph  Addison  was  here."  5 

Though  the  troopers  of  the  King's  Lifeguards  were  all 
gentlemen,  yet  the  rest  of  the  gentlemen  seemed  ignorant 
and  vulgar  boors  to  Harry  Esmond,  with  the  exception  of  this 
good-natured  Corporal  Steele  the  Scholar,  and  Captain  West- 
bury  and  Lieutenant  Trant,  who  were  always  kind  to  the  lad.  xc 
They  remained  for  some  weeks  or  months  encamped  in  Castle- 
wood,  and  Harry  learned  from  them,  from  time  to  time, 
how  the  lady  at  Hexton  Castle  was  treated,  and  the  par- 
ticulars of  her  confinement  there.  Tis  known  that  King 
William  was  disposed  to  deal  very  leniently  with  the  gentry  15 
who  remained  faithful  to  the  old  king's  cause ;  and  no  prince 
usurping  a  crown,  as  his  enemies  said  he  did  (righteously 
taking  it  as  I  think  now°),  ever  caused  less  blcod  to  be  shed. 
As  for  women-conspirators,  he  kept  spies  on  the  least  danger- 
ous, and  locked  up  the  others.  Lady  Castlewood  had  the  20 
best  rooms  in  Hexton  Castle,  and  the  gaoler's  garden  to 
walk  in ;  and  though  she  repeatedly  desired  to  be  led  out  to 
execution,  like  ]Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  there  never  was  any 
thought  of  taking  her  painted  old  head  off,  or  any  desire  to 
do  aught  but  keep  her  person  in  security.  25 

And  it  appeared  she  found  that  some  were  friends  in  her 
misfortune,  whom  she  had,  in  her  prosperity,  considered  as 
her  worst  enemies.  Colonel  Francis  Esmond,  my  lord's 
cousin  and  her  ladyship's,  who  had  married  the  Dean  of 
Winchester's  daughter,  and  since  King  James's  departure  30 
out  of  England,  had  lived  not  very  far  aw^ay  from  Hexton 
town,  hearing  of  his  kinswoman's  strait,  and  being  friends 
with  Colonel  Brice,  commanding  for  King  William  in  Hexton, 
and  with  the  church  dignitaries  there,  came  to  visit  her  lady- 
ship in  prison,  offering  to  his  uncle's  daughter  an}^  friendly  35 
services  which  la}"  in  his  power.  And  he  brought  his  lady 
and  little  daughter  to  see  the  prisoner,  to  the  latter  of  whom, 
a  child  of  great  beauty,  and  many  winning  ways,  the  old 
Viscountess  took  not  a  little  liking,  although  betw^een  her 


60  HENRY   ESMOND 

ladyship  and  the  child's  mother  there  was  little  more  love 
than  formerly.  There  are  some  injuries  which  women  never 
forgive  one  another :  and  Madame  Francis  Esmond,  in 
marrying  her  cousin,  had  done  one  of  those  irretrievable 
5  wrongs  to  Lady  Castlewood.  But  as  she  was  now  humiliated, 
and  in  misfortune,  iMadame  Francis  could  allow  a  truce  to 
her  enmity,  and  could  be  kind  for  a  while,  at  least,  to  her 
husband's  discarded  mistress.  So  the  little  Beatrix,  her 
daughter,  was  permitted  often  to  go  and  visit  the  imprisoned 

10  Viscountess,  who,  in  so  far  as  the  child  and  its  father  were 
concerned,  got  to  abate  in  her  anger  towards  that  branch 
of  the  Castlewood  family.  And,  the  letters  of  Colonel 
Esmond  coming  to  light,  as  has  been  said,  and  his  conduct 
being  known  to  the  King's  council,  the  Colonel  was  put  in  a 

15  better  position  with  the  existing  government  than  he  had 
ever  before  been ;  any  suspicions  regarding  his  loyalty  were 
entirely  done  away;  and  so  he  was  enabled  to  be  of  more 
service  to  his  kinswoman  than  he  could  otherwise  have 
been. 

20  And  now  there  befell  an  event  by  which  this  lady  recovered 
her  liberty,  and  the  house  of  Castlewood  got  a  new  owner, 
and  fatherless  little  Harry  Esmond  a  new  and  most  kind 
protector  and  friend.  Whatever  that  secret  was  which 
Harry  was  to  hear  from  my  lord,  the  boy  never  heard  it ;  for 

25  that  night  when  Father  Holt  arrived,  and  carried  my  lord 
away  with  him,  was  the  last  on  which  Harry  ever  saw  his 
patron.  What  happened  to  my  lord  may  be  briefly  told 
here.  Having  found  the  horses  at  the  place  where  they 
were  lying,  my  lord  and  Father  Holt  rode  together  to  Chat- 

30  teris,°  where  they  had  temporary  refuge  with  one  of  the 
father's  penitents  in  that  city;  but  the  pursuit  being  hot 
for  them,  and  the  reward  for  the  apprehension  of  one  or  the 
other  considerable,  it  was  deemed  advisable  that  they 
should   separate ;    and   the   priest   betook   himself   to   other 

35  i)laces  of  retreat  known  to  him,  whilst  my  lord  passed  over 
from  BristoP  into  Ireland,  in  which  kingdom  King  James 
had  a  court  and  an  army.  My  lord  was  but  a  small  addition 
to  this;  bringing,  indeed,  only  his  sword  and  the  few  pieces 
in  his  pocket ;  but  the  King  received  him  with  some  kindness 


HENRY   ESMOND  61 

and  distinction,  in  spite  of  his  poor  plight,  confirmed  him 
in  his  new  title  of  Marquis,  gave  him  a  regiment,  and  pro- 
mised him  further  promotion.  But  titles  or  promotion  were 
not  to  benefit  him  now.  My  lord  was  wounded  at  the 
fatal  battle  of  the  Boyne,°  flying  from  which  field  (long  5 
after  his  master  had  set  him  an  example),  he  lay  for  a  while 
concealed  in  the  marshy  country  near  to  the  town  of  Trim,° 
and  more  from  catarrh  and  fever  caught  in  the  bogs  than 
from  the  steel  of  the  enemy  in  the  battle,  sank  and  died. 
May  the  earth  lie  light  upon  Thomas  of  Castle  wood !  He  ic 
who  writes  this  must  speak  in  charity,  though  this  lord  did 
him  and  his  two  grievous  wrongs :  for  one  of  these  he 
would  have  made  amends,  perhaps,  had  life  been  spared 
him;  but  the  other  lay  beyond  his  power  to  repair,  though 
'tis  to  be  hoped  that  a  greater  Power  than  a  priest  has  15 
absolved  him  of  it.  He  got  the  comfort  of  this  absolution, 
too,  such  as  it  was :  a  priest  of  Trim  writing  a  letter  to  my 
lady  to  inform  her  of  this  calamity. 

But  in  those  days  letters  were  slow  of  travelling,  and  our 
priest's  took  two  months  or  more  on  its  journey  from  Ireland  20 
to  England:  where,  when  it  did  arrive,  it  did  not  find  my 
lady  at  her  own  house;  she  was  at  the  King's  house  of 
Hexton  Castle  when  the  letter  came  to  Castlewood,  but 
it  was  opened  for  all  that  by  the  officer  in  command 
there.  25 

Harry  Esmond  well  remembered  the  receipt  of  this  letter, 
which  Lockwood  brought  in  as  Captain  Westbury  and  Lieu- 
tenant Trant  were  on  the  Green  plajdng  at  bowls,  young 
Esmond  looking  on  at  the  sport  or  reading  his  book  in  the 
arbour.  3° 

"Here's  news  for  Frank  Esmond,"  says  CapAain  Westbury; 
''Harry,  did  you  ever  see  Colonel  Esmond?"  And  Captain 
Westbury  looked  very  hard  at  the  boy  as  he  spoke. 

Harry  said  he  had  seen  him  but  once  when  he  was  at 
Hexton,  at  the  ball  there.  35 

"  And  did  he  say  anything  ?  " 

"He  said  what  I  don't  care  to  repeat,"  Harry  answered. 
For  he  was  now  twelve  years  of  age :  he  knew  what  his  birth 
was  and  the  disgrace  of  it ;   and  he  felt  no  love  towards  the 


62  HENRY   ESMOND 

man  who  had  most  Hkely  stained  his  mother's  honour  and 
his  own. 

'*  Did  you  love  my  Lord  Castle  wood  ?  " 
"I  wait  until  I  know  my  mother,  sir,  to  say,"  the  boy 
5  answered,  his  eyes  filling  with  tears, 

"Something  has  happened  to  Lord  Castle  wood,"  Captain 
Westbury  said  in  a  very  grave  tone  —  ''  something  which 
must  happen  to  us  all.  He  is  dead  of  a  wound  received  at 
the  Boyne,   fighting  for  King  James." 

10  ''I  am  glad  my  lord  fought  lor  the  right  cause,"  the  boy 
said. 

''  It  was  better  to  meet  death  on  the  field  like  a  man,  than 
face  it  on  Tower  Hill,  as  some  of  them  may,"  continued  Mr.' 
Westbury.     "I  hope  he  has  made  some  testament,  or  pro- 

15  vided  for  thee  somehow.  This  letter  says,  he  recommends 
unicum  jilium  suum  dilectLSsiinu)n°  to  his  lady.  I  hope 
he  has  left  you  more  than  that." 

Harry  did  not  know,  he  said.  He  was  in  the  hands  of 
Heaven  and  Fate;    but  more  lonely  now,  as  it  seemed  to 

20  him,  than  he  had  been  all  the  rest  of  his  life ;  and  that 
night,  as  he  lay  in  his  little  room  which  he  still  occu- 
pied, the  boy  thought  with  many  a  pang  of  shame  and 
grief  of  his  strange  and  solitary  condition :  —  how  he  had  a 
father  and   no  father;    a  nameless  mother  that  had  been 

25  brought  to  ruin,  perhaps,  by  that  very  father  whom  Harry 
could  only  acknowledge  in  secret  and  with  a  blush,  and 
whom  he  could  neither  love  nor  revere.  And  he  sickened  to 
think  how  Father  Holt,  a  stranger,  and  two  or  three  soldiers, 
his  acfjuaintances  of  the  last  six  weeks,  were  the  only  friends 

30  he  had  in  the  great  wide  world,  where  he  was  now  quite 
alone.  The  soul  of  the  boy  was  full  of  love,  and  he  longed 
as  he  lay  in  the  darkness  there  for  some  one  upon  whom  he 
could  bestow  it.  He  remembers,  and  must  to  his  dying 
day,  the  thoughts  and  tears  of  that  long  night,  the  hours 

35  tolling  througii  it.  Who  was  he  and  what?  Why  here 
rather  than  elsewhere?  I  have  a  mind,  he  thought,  to  go  to 
that  priest  at  Trim,  and  find  out  what  my  father  said  to 
him  on  his  deatii-bed  confession.  Is  there  any  child  in  the 
whole  world  so  unprotected  as  I  am?     Shall  I  get  up  and 


HENRY   ESMOND  63 

quit  this  place,  and  run  to  Ireland?  With  these  thoughts 
and  tears  the  lad  passed  that  night  away  until  he  wept  him- 
self to  sleep. 

The  next  day,  the  gentlemen  of  the  guard  who  had  heard 
what  had  befallen  him  were  more  than  usually  kind  to  the  5 
child,  especially  his  friend  Scholar  Dick,  who  told  him 
about  his  own  father's  death,  which  had  happened  when 
Dick  was  a  child  at  Dublin,  not  quite  five  years  of  age. 
''That  was  the  first  sensation  of  grief,''  Dick  said,  ''I  ever 
knew.  I  remember  I  went  into  the  room  where  his  body  la 
lay,  and  my  mother  sate  weeping  beside  it.  I  had  my 
battledore  in  my  hand,  and  fell  a-beating  the  coffin,  and 
calling  Papa;  on  which  my  mother  caught  me  in  her  arms, 
and  told  me  in  a  flood  of  tears  Papa  could  not  hear  me,  and 
would  play  with  me  no  more,  for  they  were  going  to  put  15 
him  under  ground,  whence  he  could  never  come  to  us  again. 
And  this,"  said  Dick  kindly,  ''has  made  me  pity  all  children 
ever  since ;  and  caused  me  to  love  thee,  my  poor  fatherjess, 
motherless  lad.  And  if  ever  thou  wantest  a  friend,  thou 
shalt  have  one  in  Richard  Steele."  20 

Harry  Esmond  thanked  him,  and  was  grateful.  But 
what  could  Corporal  Steele  do  for  him  ?  —  take  him  to  ride 
a  spare  horse,  and  be  servant  to  the  troop?  Though  there 
might  be  a  bar°  in  Plarry  Esmond's  shield,  it  was  a  noble 
one.  The  counsel  of  the  two  friends  was,  that  little  Harry  25 
should  stay  where  he  was,  and  abide  his  fortune :  so  Esmond 
stayed  on  at  Castlewood,  awaiting  with  no  small  anxiety 
the  fate,  whatever  it  was,  which  was  over  him. 


CHAPTER    VII 

I  AM  LEFT  AT   CASTLEWOOD  AN   ORPHAN,  AND   FIND  MOST  KIND 
PROTECTORS   THERE 

During   the   stay  of  the  soldiers   in   Castlewood,  honest 
Dick  the  Scholar  was  the  constant  companion  of  the  lonely,  3c 
little  orphan  lad,  Harry  Esmond  :  and  they  read  together,  and 
they  played  bowls  together,   and  when  the  other  troopers 


64  HENRY   ESMOND 

or  their  officers,  who  were  free-spoken  over  their  cups  (aa 
was  the  way  of  that  day,  when  neither  men  nor  women  were 

^  over-nice),  talked  unbecomingly  of  their  amours  and  gallant- 
ries before  the  child,  Dick,  who  very  likely  was  setting  the 
5  whole  company  laughing,  would  stop  their  jokes  with  a 
maxima  debetur  pueris  reverentia,^  and  once  offered  to  lug 
out  against  another  trooper  called  Hulking  Tom,  who  wanted 
to  ask  Harry  Esmond  a  ribald  question. 

Also,  Dick  seeing  that  the  child  had,  as  he  said,  a   sen- 

10  sibility  above  his  years,  and  a  great  and  praiseworthy  dis- 
cretion, confided  to  Harry  his  love  for  a  vintner's  daughter, 
near  to  the  Tolly ard,  Westminster,  whom  Dick  adciressed 
as  Saccharissa°  in  many  verses  of  his  composition,  and 
without  whom  he  said  it  would  be  impossible  that  he  could 

15  continue  to  live.  He  vowed  this  a  thousand  times  in  a 
da}^  though  Harry  smiled  to  see  the  lovelorn  swain  had  his 
health  and  appetite  as  well  as  the  most  heart-whole  trooper 
in  the  regiment :  and  he  swore  Harry  to  secrecy  too,  which 
vow  the  lad  religiously  kept,   until  he  found  that  officers 

20  and  privates  were  all  taken  into  Dick's  confidence,  and  had 
the  benefit  of  his  verses.  And  it  must  be  owned  likewise 
that  while  Dick  was  sighing  after  Saccharissa  in  London,  he 
had  consolations  in  the  country :  for  there  came  a  wench 
out  of  Castlewood  village  who  had  washed  his  linen,  and  who 

25  cried  sadly  when  she  heard  he  was  gone :  and  without 
paying  her  bill  too,  which  Harry  Esmond  took  upon  himself 
to  discharge  by  giving  the  girl  a  silver  pocket-piece,  which 
Scholar  Dick  had  presented  to  him,  when  with  many  embraces 
and  j)rayers  for  his  prosperity  Dick  parted  from  him,  the 

30  garrison  of  Castlewood  being  ordered  away.  Dick  the 
S(;holar  said  he  would  never  forget  his  young  friend,  nor 
indeed  did  h(; :  anfl  Harry  was  sorry  when  the  kind  soldiers 
vacated  Castlewood,  looking  forward  with  no  small  anxiety 
(for   care   and   solitude   had   made   him   thoughtful   beyond 

35  his  years)  to  his  fate  when  the  new  lord  and  lady  of  the 
house  came  to  live  there.  He  had  lived  to  be  past  twelve 
years  old  now;  and  had  never  had  a  friend,  savcihis 
wild  trooper  perhaps,  and  Fjither  Holt ;  and  had  a'  fond 
and  affectionate  heart,  tender  to  weakness,  that  would  fain 


HENRY   ESMOND  65 

attach  itself  to  somebody,  and  did  not  seem  at  rest  until  it 
had  found  a  friend  who  would  take  charge  of  it. 

The  instinct  which  led  Harry  Esmond  to  admire  and  love 
the  gracious  person,  the  fair  apparition  of  whose  beauty  and 
kindness  had  so  movetl  him  when  he  first  beheld  her,  became  5 
soon  a  devoted  affection  and  passion  of  gratitude  which 
entirely  filled  his  young  heart,  that  as  yet,  except  in  the 
case  of  dear  Father  Holt,  had  had  very  little  kindness  for 
which  to  be  thankful.  0  Dca  certe°  thought  he,  remember- 
ing the  lines  out  of  the  /Eneis  which  Mr.  Holt  had  taught  10 
him.  There  seemed,  as  the  boy  thought,  in  every- look  or 
gesture  of  this  fair  creature  an  angelical  softness  and  bright 
pity  —  in  motion  or  repose  she  seemed  gracious  alike ;  the 
tone  of  her  voice,  though  she  uttered  words  ever  so  trivial, 
gave  him.  a  pleasure  that  amounted  almost  to  anguish.  It  15 
cannot  be  called  love,  that  a  lad  of  tv/elve  years  of  age, 
little  more  than  a  menial,  felt  for  an  exalted  lady,  his  mistress : 
but  it  was  worship.  To  catch  her  glance,  to  divine  her 
errand  and  run  on  it  before  she  had  spoken  it;  to  watch, 
follow,  adore  her;  became  the  business  of  his  life.  Mean-  20 
while,  as  is  the  way  often,  his  idol  had  idols  of  her  own, 
and  never  thought  of  or  suspected  the  admiration  of  her 
little  pigmy  adorer. 

My  lady  had  on  her  side  her  three  idols :  first  and  fore- 
most, Jove  and  supreme  ruler,  was  her  lord,  Harry's  patron,  25 
the  good  Viscount  of  Castle  wood.  All  wishes  of  his  were 
laws  with  her.  If  he  had  a  headache,  she  was  ill.  If  he 
frowned,  she  trembled.  If  he  joked,  she  smiled  and  was 
charmed.  If  he  went  a-hunting,  she  was  always  at  the 
window  to  see  him  ride  away,  her  little  son  crowing  on  her  30 
arm,  or  on  the  watch  till  his  return.  She  made  dishes  for 
his  dinner :  spiced  his  wine  for  him :  made  the  toast  for 
his  tankard  at  breakfast :  hushed  the  house  when  he  slept 
in  his  chair,  and  watched  for  a  look  when  he  woke.  If  my 
lord  was  not  a  little  proud  of  his  beauty,  my  lady  adored  it.  31 
She  clung  to  his  arm  as  he  paced  the  terrace,  her  two  fair 
little  hands  clasped  round  his  great  one ;  her  eyes  were  never 
tired  of  looking  in  his  face  and  wondering  at  its  perfection. 
Her  little  son  was  his  son,  and  had  his  father's  look  and 


66  HENRY  ESMOND 

curly  brown  hair.  Her  daughter  Beatrix  was  his  daughter, 
and  had  his  eyes  —  were  there  ever  such  beautiful  eyes  in  the 
world  ?  All  the  house  was  arranged  so  as  to  bring  him  ease 
and  give  him  pleasure.  She  liked  the  small  gentr}^  round 
5  about  to  come  and  pay  him  court ;  neyer  caring  for  admira- 
tion for  herself,  those  who  wanted  to  be  well  with  the 
lady  must  admire  him.  Not  regarding  her  dress,  she  would 
wear  a  gown  to  rngs,  because  he  had  once  liked  it :  and 
if  he  bi'ought  her  a  brooch  or  a  ribbon  would  prefer  it  to  all 

10  the  most  costly  articles  of  her  wardrobe. 

My  loi'd  went  to  London  every  year  for  six  weeks,  and  the 
family  being  too  poor  to  appear  at  Court  with  any  figure, 
he  went  alone.  It  was  not  until  he  was  out  of  sight  that 
her  face  showed  any  sorrow:   and  what  a  joy  when  he  came 

15  back !  What  preparation  before  his  return !  The  fond 
creature  had  his  arm-chair  at  the  chimney-side  —  delighting 
to  put  the  children  in  it,  and  look  at  them  there.  Nobody 
took  his  place  at  the  table;  but  his  silver  tankard  stood 
there  as  when  my  lord  was  present. 

20  A  pretty  sight  it  was  to  see,  during  my  lord's  absence, 
or  on  those  many  mornings  when  sleep  or  headache  kept 
him  abed,  this  fair  young  lady  of  Castlewood,  her  little 
daughter  at  her  knee,  and  her  domesticks  gathered  round 
her,   reading  the   Morning   Prayer  of  the   English   Church. 

25  Esmond  long  remembered  how  she  looked  and  spoke,  kneel- 
ing reverently  before  the  sacred  book,  the  sun  shining  upon 
her  golden  hair  until  it  made  a  halo  round  about  her.  A 
dozen  of  the  servants  of  the  house  kneeled  in  a  line  opposite 
their  mistress;    for  a  while  Harry  Esmond  kept  apart  from 

30  these  mysteries,  but  Doctor  Tusher  showing  him  that  the 
prayers  read  were  those  of  the  Church  of  all  ages,  and  the 
boy's  own  inclination  prompting  him  to  be  always  as  near 
as  he  might  to  his  mistress,  and  to  think  all  things  she  did 
right,    from   listening  to   the   prayers   in   the   antechamber, 

35  he  came  presently  to  kneel  down  with  the  rest  of  the  house- 
hold in  the  i)arlour;  and  before  a  couple  of  years  my  lady 
had  made  a  thorough  convert.  Indeed,  the  boy  loved  his 
catechiser°  so  much  that  he  would  have  subscribed  to  any- 
thing she  bade  him,  and  was  never  tired  of  listening  to  her 


HENRY   ESMOND  67 

fond  discourse  and  simple  comments  upon  the  book  which 
she  read  to  him  in  a  voice  of  which  it  was  difficult  to  resist 
the  sweet  persuasion,  and  tender  appealing  kindness.  This 
friendly  controversy,  and  the  intimacy  which  it  occasioned, 
bound  the  lad  more  fondly  than 'ever  to  his  mistress.  The  5 
happiest  period  of  all  his  life  was  this ;  and  the  young  mother, 
with  her  daughter  and  son,  and  the  orphan  lad  whom  she 
protected,  read  and  worked  and  played,  and  were  children 
together.  If  the  lady  looked  forward  —  as  what  fond  woman 
does  not?  —  towards  the  future,  she  had  no  plans  from  10 
which  Harry  Esmond  was  left  out;  and  a  thousand  and  a 
thousand  times  in  his  passionate  and  impetuous  way  he 
vowed  that  no  power  should  separate  him  from  his  mistress; 
and  only  asked  for  some  chance  to  happen  by  which  he 
might  show  his  fidelity  to  her.  Now,  at  the  close  of  his  15 
life,  as  he  sits  and  recalls  in  tranquillity  the  happy  and  busy 
scenes  of  it,  he  can  think,  not  ungratefully,  that  he  has  been 
faithful  to  that  early  vow.  Such  a  life  is  so  simple  that 
years  may  be  chronicled  in  a  few  lines.  But  few  men's 
life- voyages  are  destined  to  be  all  prosperous ;  and  this  calm  20 
of  which  we  are  speaking  was  soon  to  come  to  an  end. 

As  Esmond  grew,  and  observed  for  himself,  he  found  of 
necessity  much  to  read  and  think  of  outside  that  fond  circle 
of  kinsfolk  who  had  admitted  him  to  join  hand  with  them. 
He  read  more  books  than  they  cared  to  study  with  him:  25 
was  alone  in  the  midst  of  them  many  a  time,  and  passed 
nights  over  labours,  futile,  perhaps,  but  in  which  they 
could  not  join  him.  His  dear  mistress  divined  his  thoughts 
with  her  usual  jealous  watchfulness  of  affection :  began  to 
forebode  a  time  when  he  would  escape  from  his  home  3c 
nest ;  and,  at  his  eager  protestations  to  the  contrary,  would 
only  sigh  and  shake  her  head.  Before  those  fatal  decrees 
in  life  are  executed  there  are  always  secret  previsions  and 
warning  omens.  When  everything  yet  seems  calm,  we  are 
aware  that  the  storm  is  coming.  Ere  the  happy  days  were  35 
over,  two,  at  least,  of  that  home-part}^  felt  that  they  were 
drawing  to  a  close;  and  were  uneasy,  and  on  the  look-out 
for  the  cloud  which  was  to  obscure  their  calm. 

'Twas  easy  for   Harry  to   see,   however   much   his   lady 


6S  HENRY   ESMOND 

persisted  in  obedience  and  admiration  for  her  husband, 
that  my  lord  tired  of  his  quiet  hfe,  and  grew  weary,  and 
then  testy,  at  those  gentle  bonds  with  which  his  wife  would 
have  held  him.  As  they  say  the  Grand  Lama  of  Thibet° 
5  is  very  much  fatigued  by  his  character  of  divinity,  and  yawns 
on  his  altar  as  his  bonzes  kneel  and  worship  him,  many  a 
home-god  grows  heartily  sick  of  the  reverence  with  which 
his  family-devotees  pursue  him,  and  sighs  for  freedom  and 
for  his  old  life,  and  to  be  off  the  pedestal  on  which  his  depend- 

10  ents  would  have  him  sit  for  ever,  whilst  they  adore  him,  and 
ply  him  with  flowers,  and  hymns,  and  incense,  and  flattery ; 
—  sc,  after  a  few  years  of  his  marriage,  my  honest  Lord 
Castlewood  began  to  tire ;  all  the  high-flown  raptures  and 
devotional  ceremonies  with  which  his  wife,  his  chief  priestess, 

15  treated  him,  first  sent  him  to  sleep,  and  then  drove  him  out 
of  doors;  for  the  truth  must  be  told,  that  my  lord  was  a 
jolly  gentleman  with  very  little  of  the  august  or  divine  in 
his  nature,  though  his  fond  wife  persisted  in  revering  it,  — • 
and  besides,  he  had  to  pay  a  penalty  for  this  love,  which 

20  persons  of  his  disposition  seldom  like  to  defray :  and,  in  a 
word,  if  he  had  a  loving  wife,  had  a  very  jealous  and  exacting 
one.  Then  he  wearied  of  this  jealousy:  then  he  broke 
away  from  it;  then  came,  no  doubt,  complaints  and  re- 
criminations;   then,   perhaps,   promises  of  amendment  not 

25  fulfilled;  then  upbraidings  not  the  more  pleasant,  because 
they  were  silent,  and  only  sad  looks  and  tearful  eyes  conveyed 
.them.  Then,  perhaps,  the  pair  reached  that  other  stage 
which  is  not  uncommon  in  married  life  when  the  woman 
perceives  that  the  god  of  the  honeymoon  is  a  god  no  more; 

*o  only  a  mortal  like  the  rest  of  us,  —  and  so  she  looks  into 
her  heart,  and  lo  !  vacuce  sedcs  ct  inania  arcava°  And  now, 
supposing  our  lady  to  have  a  fine  genius  and  a  brilliant  wit 
of  her  own,  and  the  magic  spell  and  infatuation  removed 
from  her  which  had  led  her  to  worshi))  as  a  god  a  very  ordi- 

35  nary  mortal  —  and  what  follows?  They  live  together,  and 
they  dine  together,  and  they  say  "my  dear"  and  "my  love" 
as  heretofore ;  but  the  man  is  himself,  and  the  woman  her- 
self; that  (h'oam  of  love  is  over,  as  everything  else  is  over 
in  life  ;  as  flowers  and  fury,  and  griefs  and  pleasures  are  over. 


HENRY  ESMOND  69 

Very  likely  the  Lady  Castlewood  had  ceased  to  adore  her 
husband  herself  long  before  she  got  off  her  knees,  or  would 
allow  her  household  to  discontinue  worshipping  him.  To 
do  him  justice,  my  lord  never  exacted  this  subservience: 
he  laughed  and  joked,  and  drank  his  bottle,  and  swore  when  5 
he  was  angry  much  too  familiarly  for  any  one  pretending 
to  sublimity;  and  did  his  best  to  destroy  the  ceremonial 
with  which  his  wife  chose  to  surround  him.  And  it  required 
no  great  conceit  on  young  Esmond's  part  to  see  that  his 
own  brains  were  better  than  his  patron's,  who,  indeed,  ic 
never  assumed  any  airs  of  superiority  over  the  lad,  or  over 
any  dependent  of  his,  save  when  he  was  displeased,  in  which 
case  he  would  express  his  mind,  in  oaths,  very  freely;  and 
who,  on  the  contrary,  perhaps,  spoiled  ''Parson  Harry," 
as  he  called  young  Esmond,  by  constanth^  praising  his  parts,°  15 
and  admiring  his  boyish  stock  of  learning. 

It  may  seem  ungracious  in  one  who  has  received  a  hundred 
favours  from  his  patron  to  speak  in  any  but  a  reverential 
manner  of  his  elders;  but  the  present  writer  has  had  de- 
scendants of  his  own,  whom  he  has  brought  up  vrith  as  little  20 
as  possible  of  the  servility  at  present  exacted  by  parents 
from  children  (under  which  mask  of  duty  there  often  lurks 
indifference,  contempt,  or  rebellion)  :  and  as  he  would  have 
his  grandsons  believe  or  represent  him  to  be  not  an  inch 
taller  than  Nature  has  made  him ;  so,  with  regard  to  his  past  25 
ac(iuaintances,  he  would  speak  without  anger,  but  with 
truth,  as  far  as  he  knows  it,  neither  extenuating  nor  setting 
down  aught  in  malice. 

So  long,  then,  as  the  world  moved  according  to  Lord  Castle- 
wood's  wishes,  he  was  good-humoured  enough;  of  a  temper  30 
naturally  sprightly  and  eas}-,  Uking  to  joke,  especially  with 
his  inferiors,  and  charmed  to  receive  the  tribute  of  their 
laughter.  All  exercises  of  the  body  he  could  perform  to 
perfection  —  shooting  at  a  mark  and  flying,  breaking  horses, 
riding  at  the  ring,  pitching  the  ciuoit,°  playing  at  all  games  35 
with  great  skill.  And  not  only  did  he  do  these  things  well, 
but  he  thought  he  did  them  to  perfection;  hence  he  was 
often  tricked  about  horses  which  he  pretended  to  know 
better  than   any   jockey:  was   made  to    play   at    ball   and 


70  HENRY   ESMOND 

billiards  by  sharpers  who  took  his  money;  and  came  back 
from  London  wofully  poorer  each  time  than  he  went,  as 
the  state  of  his  affairs  testified,  when  the  sudden  accident 
came,  by  which  his  career  was  brought  to  an  end. 
5  He  was  fond  of  the  parade  of  dress,  and  passed  as  many 
hours  daily  at  his  toilette  as  an  elderly  coquette.  A  tenth 
part  of  his  day  was  spent  in  the  brushing  of  his  teeth  and  the 
oiling  of  his  hair,  which  was  curling  and  brown,  and  which 
he  did  not  like  to  conceal  under  a  perriwig,  such  as  almost 

10  everybody  of  that  time  w^ore.  (We  have  the  liberty  of 
our  hair  back  now,  but  powder  and  pomatum  along  with 
it.  When,  I  wonder,  will  these  monstrous  poll-taxes  of 
our  age  be  withdrawn,  and  men  allowed  to  carry  their 
colours,  black,  red,  or  grey,  as  Nature  made  them?)     And 

15  as  he  liked  her  to  be  well  dressed,  his  lady  spared  no  pains  in 
that  matter  to  please  him;  indeed,  she  would  dress  her 
head  or  cut  it  off  if  he  had  bidden  her. 

It  was  a  wonder  to  young  Esmond,  serving  as  page  to  my 
lord  and  lady,  to  hear,  day  after  day,  to  such  company  as 

20  came,  the  same  boisterous  stories  told  by  my  lord,  at  which 
his  lady  never  failed  to  smile  or  hold  down  her  head,  and 
Doctor  Tusher  to  burst  out  laughing  at  the  ):>roper  point,  or 
cry  "  Fye  my  lord,  remember  my  cloth,"  but  with  such  a  faint 
show  of  resistance,  that  it  only  provoked  my  lord  further. 

25  Lord  Castle  wood's  stories  rose  by  degrees,  and  became 
stronger  after  the  ale  at  dinner  and  the  bottle  afterv/ards; 
my  lady  always  taking  flight  after  the  very  first  glass  to  Church 
and  King,  and  leaving  the  gentlemen  to  drink  the  rest  of  the 
toasts  by  themselves. 

30  And  as  Harry  Esmond  was  her  page,  he  also  was  called 
from  duty  at  this  time.  "My  lord  has  lived  in  the  army 
and  with  soklicrs,"  she  would  say  to  the  lad,  "amongst  whom 
great  licence  is  allowed.  You  have  had  a  different  nurture, 
and  I  trust  these  things  will  change  as  you  grow  older;   not 

35  that  any  fault  attaches  to  my  lord,  who  is  one  of  the  best 
and  most  religious  men  in  this  kingdom."  And  very  likely 
she  believed  so.  Tis  strange  what  a  man  may  do,  and  a 
woman   yet  think  him  an  angel. 

And  as  Esmond  has  taken  truth  for  his  motto,  it  must  be 


HENRY   ESMOND  71 

owned,  even  with  regard  to  that  other  angel,  his  mistress, 
that  she  had  a  fauh  of  character,  which  flawed  her  perfections. 
With  the  other  sex  perfectly  tolerant  and  kindl}^,  of  her 
own  she  was  invariably  jealous,  and  a  proof  that  she  had 
this  vice  is,  that  though  she  would  acknowledge  a  thousand  5 
faults  which  she  had  not,  to  this  which  she  had  she  could 
never  be  got  to  own.  But  if  there  came  a  woman  with  even 
a  semblance  of  beauty  to  Castlewood,  she  was  so  sure  to  find 
out  some  wrong  in  her,  that  my  lord,  laughing  in  his  jolly 
way,  would  often  joke  with  her  concerning  her  foible.  10 
Comely  servant-maids  might  come  for  hire,  but  none  were 
taken  at  Castlewood.  The  housekeeper  w^as  old ;  my.  lady's 
own  waiting-woman  squinted,  and  was  marked  with  the 
small-pox;  the  housemaids  and  scullion  were  orchnary 
country  wenches,  to  whom  Lady  Castlewood  was  kind,  as  15 
her  nature  made  her  to  everybody  almost;  but  as  soon  as 
ever  she  had  to  do  with  a  pretty  woman,  she  was  cold,  retir- 
ing, and  haughty.  The  country  ladies  found  this  fault  in 
her;  and  though  the  men  all  admired  her,  their  wives  and 
daughters  complained  of  her  coldness  and  airs,  and  said  that  20 
Castlewood  was  pleasanter  in  Lady  Jezebel's  time  (as  the 
dowager  was  called)  than  at  present.  Some  few  Avere  of 
my  mistress's  side.  Old  Lady  Blenkinsop  Jointure,°  who 
had  been  at  court  in  King  James  the  First's  time,  always 
took  her  side ;  and  so  did  old  Mistress  Crookshank,  Bishop  25 
Crookshank's  daughter,  of  Hexton,  who,  with  some  more 
of  their  like,  pronounced  my  lady  an  angel ;  but  the  pretty 
women  were  not  of  this  mind ;  and  the  opinion  of  the  country 
was  that  m.y  lord  was  tied  to  his  wife's  apron-strings,  and 
that  she  ruled  over  him.  3c 

The  second  fight  which  Harry  Esmond  had,  was  at  four- 
teen years  of  age,  with  Bryan  Hawkshaw,  Sir  John  Hawk- 
shaw's  son,  of  Bramblebrook,  who  advancing  this  opinion 
that  my  lady  was  jealous,  and  henpecked  my  lord,  put 
Harry  into  such  a  fury,  that  Harry  fell  on  him,  and  w^ith  35 
such  rage,  that  the  other  boy,  w^ho  was  two  years  older, 
and  by  far  bigger  than  he,  had  by  far  the  worst  of  the  assault, 
until  it  was  interrupted  by  Doctor  Tusher  w^alking  out  of 
the  dinner  room. 


72  HENRY   ESMOND 

Bryan  Hawkshaw  got  up,  bleeding  at  the  nose,  having 
indeed,  been  surprised,  as  many  a  stronger  man  might  have 
been,  by  the  fury  of  the  assault  upon  him. 

''You  Httle  bastard  beggar!"  he  said,  "I'll  murder  you  for 
this!" 

And  indeed  he  was  big  enough. 

'Bastard  or  not,"  said  the  other,  grinding  his  teeth,  ''I 
have  a  couple  of  swords,  and  if  you  like  to  meet  me,  as  a 
man,  on  the  terraee  to-night " 

And  here  the  Doctor  coming  up,  the  colloquy  of  the  young 
champions  ended.  Very  likely,  big  as  he  was,  HawkshaAV 
did  not  care  to  continue  a  fight  with  such  a  ferocious  oppo- 
nent as  this  had  been. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

AFTER    GOOD    FORTUNE    COMES   EVIL 

Since  my  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu°  brought  home 

15  the  custom  of  inoculation  from  Turkey  (a  perilous  practice 
many  deem  it,  and  only  a  useless  rushing  into  the  jaws  of 
danger),  I  think  the  severity  of  the  small-pox,  that  dreadful 
scourge  of  the  world,  has  somewhat  been  abated  in  our 
part  of  it;   and  remember  in  my  time  hundreds  of  the  young 

20  and  beautiful  who  have  been  carried  to  the  grave,  or  have 
only  risen  from  their  pillows  frightfully  scarred  and  dis- 
figured by  this  malady.  Many  a  sweet  face  hath  left  its 
roses  on  the  bed,  on  which  this  dreadful  and  withering 
blight   has   laid    them.     In   my   early   days   this   pestilence 

25  would  enter  a  village  and  destroy  half  its  inhabitants :  at  its 
approach  it  may  well  be  imagined  not  only  that  the  beautiful 
but  the  strongest  were  alarmed,  and  those  fled  who  could. 
One  day,  in  tlie  year  1694  (I  have  good  reason  to  remember 
it),  Doctor  Tusher  ran  into  Castlewood  House,  with  a  face 

30  of  consternation,  saying  that  the  malady  had  made  its  appear- 
ance at  the  blacksmith's  house  in  the  village,  and  that  one 
of  the  maids  there  was  down  in  the  small-pox. 

The   blacksmith,   besides  his  forge   and   irons  for  horses. 


HENRY   ESMOND  73 

had  an  alehouse  for  men,  which  his  wife  kept,  and  his  com- 
pany sate  on  benches  before  the  inn  door,  looking  at  the 
smithy  while  they  drank  their  beer.  Now,  there  was  a 
pretty  girl  at  this  inn,  the  landlord's  men  called  Nancy 
Sievewright,  a  bouncing,  fresh-looking  lass,  whose  face  5 
was  as  red  as  the  hollyhocks  over  the  pales  of  the  garden 
behind  the  inn.  At  this  time  Harry  Esmond  was  a  lad  of 
sixteen,  and  somehow  in  his  walks  and  rambles  it  often 
happened  that  he  fell  in  with  Nancy  Sievewright 's  bonny 
face;  if  he  did  not  want  something  done  at  the  blacksmith's,  10 
he  would  go  and  drink  ale  at  the  Three  Castles,  or  find  some 
pretext  for  seeing  this  poor  Nancy.  Poor  thing,  Harry 
meant  or  imagined  no  harm ;  and  she,  no  doubt,  as  little, 
but  the  truth  is  they  were  always  meeting  —  in  the  lanes, 
or  by  the  brook,  or  at  the  garden-palings,  or  about  Castle-  15 
wood:  it  was,  ''Lord,  Mr.  Henry,"  and  ''How  do  you  do, 
Nancy?"  many  and  many  a  time  in  the  week.  Tis  surpris- 
ing the  magnetick  attraction  which  draws  people  together 
from  ever  so  far.  I  blush  as  I  think  of  poor  Nancy  now,  in  a 
red  bodice  and  buxom  purple  cheeks  and  a  canvass  petticoat ;  20 
and  that  I  de\nsed  schemes,  and  set  traps,  and  made  speeches 
in  my  heart,  which  I  seldom  had  courage  to  say  when  in 
presence  of  that  humble  enchantress,  who  knew  nothing 
beyond  milking  a  cow,  and  opened  her  black  eyes  with  wonder 
when  I  made  one  of  my  fine  speeches  out  of  Waller  or  Ovid.°  25 
Poor  Nancy !  from  the  mist  of  far-off  years  thine  honest 
country  face  beams  out;  and  I  remember  thy  kind  voice 
as  if  I  had  heard  it  yesterday. 

When  Doctor  Tusher  brought  the  news  that  the  small- 
pox was  at  the  Three  Castles,  whither  a  tramper,  it  was  3c 
said,  had  brought  the  malady,  Henry  Esmond's  first  thought 
was  of  alarm  for  poor  Nancy,  and  then  of  shame  and  disc^uiet 
for  the  Castlewood  family,  lest  he  might  have  brought  this 
infection ;  for  the  truth  is  that  Mr.  Harry  had  been  sitting 
in  a  back  room  for  an  hour  that  day,  where  Nancy  Sievewright  35 
was  with  a  little  brother  who  complained  of  headache,  and 
was  lying  stupefied  and  crying,  either  in  a  chair  by  the 
corner  of  the  fire,  or  in  Nancy's  lap,  or  on  mine. 

Little  Lady  Beatrix  screamed  out  at  Dr.  Tusher 's  news; 


74  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  my  lord  cried  out,  ''God  bless  me!''  He  was  a  brave 
man  and  not  afraid  of  death  in  any  shape  but  this.  He 
was  very  proud  of  his  pink  complexion  and  fair  hair  —  but 
the  idea  of  death  by  small-pox  scared  him  beyond  all  other 
5  ends.  ''We  will  take  the  children  and  ride  away  to-morrow 
to  Walcote:"  this  was  my  lord's  small  house,  inherited 
from  his  mother,  near  to  Winchester. 

"That  is  the  best  refuge  in  case  the  disease  spreads,"  said 
Dr.  Tusher.  '"Tis  awful  to  think  of  it  beginning  at  the 
lo  alehouse.  Half  the  people  of  the  village  have  visited  that 
to-day,  or  the  blacksmith's,  which  is  the  same  thing.  My 
clerk  Simons  lodges  with  them  —  I  can  never  go  into  my 
reading-desk  and  have  that  fellow  so  near  me.  I  won't 
have  that  man  near  me." 
15  "If  a  parishioner  dying  in  the  small-pox  sent  to  you, 
would  you  not  go?"  asked  my  lady,  looking  up  from  her 
frame  of  work,  with  her  calm  blue  eyes. 

"By  the  Lord,  /  wouldn't,"  said  my  lord. 

"  We  are  not  in  a  popish  country :  and  a  sick  man  doth  not, 
20  absolutely  need  absolution  and  confession,"  said  the  Doctor. 
"  'Tis  true  they  are  a  comfort  and  a  help  to  him  when  attain- 
able, and  to  be  administered  with  hope  of  good.     But  in  a 
case  where  the  life  of  a  parish-priest  in  the  midst  of  his  flock 
is  highly  valuable  to  them,  he  is  not  called  upon  to  risk  it 
25  (and  therewith  the  lives,  future  prospects,  and  temporal,  even 
spiritual  welfare  of  his  own  family)  for  the  sake  of  a  single 
person,  who  is  not  very  likely  in  a  condition  even  to  under- 
stand the  religious  message  whereof  the  priest  is  the  bringer 
—  being  uneducated  and  likewise  stupefied  or  delirious  by 
30  disease.     If   your    ladyship    or   his   lordship,    my   excellent 
good  friend  and  patron,  were  to  take  it —  " 

"God  forbid!"  cried  my  lord. 

"Amen,"  continued  Dr.  Tusher.     "Amen  to  that  prayer, 

my  very  good  lord  !  for  your  sake  I  would  lay  my  life  down" 

35  — and,  to  judge  from  the  alarmed  look  of  the  Doctor's  purple 

face,  you  woukl  have  thought  that  that  sacrifice  was  about 

to  b(!  called  for  instantly. 

To    love    children,    and    be     gentle    with    them,  was    an 
instinct,  rather  than  a  merit,  in  Henry  Esmond;    so  much 


HENRY   ESMOND  75 

so,  that  he  thought  almost  with  a  sort  of  shame  of  his  hking 
for  them,  and  of  the  softness  into  which  it  betrayed  him; 
and  on  this  day  the  poor  fellow  had  not  only  had  his  young 
fr.'end,  the  milkmaid's  brother,  on  his  knee,  but  had  l)een 
drawing  pictures,  and  telling  stories  to  tne  little  Frank  5 
Castlewood,  who  had  occupied  the  same  place  for  an  hour 
after  dinner,  and  was  never  tired  of  Henry's  tales,  and  his 
pictures  of  soldiers  and  horses.  As  luck  would  have  it, 
Beatrix  had  not  on  that  evening  taken  her  usual  place, 
which  generally  she  was  glad  enough  to  have,  upon  her  10 
tutor's  lap.  For  Beatrix,  from  the  earliest  time,  was  jealous 
of  every  caress  which  was  gi\'en  to  her  little  brother  Frank. 
She  would  fling  away  even  from  the  maternal  arms,  if  she 
saw  Frank  had  been  there  before  her;  insomuch  that  Lady 
Esmond  was  obliged  not  to  show  her  love  for  her  son  in  the  15 
presence  of  the  little  girl,  and  embrace  one  or  the  other 
alone.  She  would  turn  pale  and  red  with  rage  if  she  caught 
signs  of  intelligence  or  affection  between  Frank  and  his 
mother;  would  sit  apart,  and  not  speak  for  a  whole  night, 
if  she  thought  the  bo}^  had  a  better  fruit  or  a  larger  cake  20 
than  hers ;  would  fling  away  a  ribbon  if  he  had  one  ;  and  from 
the  earliest  age,  sitting  up  in  her  little  chair  by  the  great 
fireplace  opposite  to  the  corner  where  Lady  Castlewood 
commonly  sate  at  her  embroidery,  would  utter  infantine 
sarcasms  about  the  favour  shown  to  her  brother.  These,  if  25 
spoken  in  the  presence  of  Lord  Castlewood,  tickled  and  amused 
his  humour;  he  would  pretend  to  love  Frank  best,  and 
dandle  and  kiss  him,  and  roar  with  laughter  at  Beatrix's 
jealousy.  But  the  truth  is,  my  lord  did  not  often  Vvitness 
these  scenes,  nor  very  much  trouble  the  quiet  fireside  at  30 
which  his  lady  passed  many  long  evenings.  ^ly  lord  was 
hunting  all  day  when  the  season  admitted ;  he  frequented 
all  the  cock-fights  and  fairs  in  the  country,  and  would 
ride,  twenty  miles  to  see  a  main  fought,  or  two  clowns  break 
their  heads  at  a  cudgelling  match;  and  he  hked  better  to  35 
sit  in  his  parlour  drinking  ale  and  punch  with  .Jack  and  Tom, 
than  in  his  wife's  drawing-room ;  whither,  if  he  came,  he 
brought  only  too  often  blood-shot  eyes,  a  hiccuping  voice, 
and  a  reeling  gait.     The  management  of  the  house  and  the 


76  HENRY  ESMOND 

property,  the  care  of  the  few  tenants  and  the  village  poor,  and 
the  accounts  of  the  estate  were  in  the  hands  of  his  lady  and 
her  young  secretary,  Harry  Esmond.  My  lord  took  charge 
of  the  stables,  the  kennel,  and  the  cellar  —  and  he  filled 
5  this  and  emptied  it  too. 

So,  it  chanced  that  upon  this  very  day,  when  poor  Harry 
Esmond  had  had  the  blacksmith's  son,  and  the  peer's  son, 
alike  upon  his  knee,  little  Beatrix,  who  would  come  to  her  tutor 
willingly  enough  with  her  book  and  her  writing,  had  refused 

10  him,  seeing  the  place  occupied  by  her  brother,  and,  luckil}?-  for 
her,  had  sate  at  the  further  end  of  the  room,  away  from  him, 
playing  with  a  spaniel  dog,  which  she  had  (and  for  which, 
by  fits  and  starts,  she  would  take  a  great  affection),  and 
talking  at  Harry  Esmond  over  her  shoulder,  as  she  pretended 

15  to  caress  the  dog,  saying,  that  Fido  would  love  her,  and  she 
would  love  Fido,  and  nothing  but  Fido,  all  her  life. 

When  then  the  news  was  brought  that  the  little  boy  at  the 
Three  Castles  was  ill  with  the  sn)all-pox,  poor  Harry  Esmond 
felt  a  shock  of  alarm,  not  so  much  for  himself  as  for  his  mis- 

20  tress's  son,  whom  he  might  have  brought  into  peril.  Beatrix, 
who  had  pouted  sufficiently  (and  who  whenever  a  stranger 
appeared  began,  from  infancy  almost,  to  play  off  little 
graces  to  catch  his  attention),  her  brother  being  now  gone 
to  bed,  was  for  taking  her  place  upon  Esmond's  knee :   for, 

25  though  the  Doctor  was  very  obsecjuious  to  her,  she  did  not 
like  him,  because  he  had  thick  boots  and  dirty  hands  (the 
pert  young  Miss  said)  and  because  she  hated  learning  the 
catechism. 

Jkit  as  she  advanced  towards  Esmond  from  the  corner 

30  where  she  had  been  sulking,  he  started  back  and  placed 
the  great  chair  on  which  he  was  sitting  between  him  and 
her  —  saying  in  the  French  language  to  Lady  Castlewood, 
with  whom  the  young  lad  had  read  much  and  whom  he  had 
perfected   in   this   tongue  —  "Madam,   the   child   must   not 

35  approach  me;  I  must  tell  you  that  I  was  at  the  blacksmith's 
to-day,  and  had  his  little  boy  upon  my  Ia{)." 

"Where  you  took  my  son  afterwards,"  Lady  Castlewood 
said,  very  angry  and  turning  red.  "I  thank  you,  sir,  for 
giving  him  such  company.     Beatrix,"  she  said  in  English,  "I 


HENRY   ESMOND  77 

forbid  you  to  touch  Mr.  Esmond.  Come  away,  child  —  come 
to  your  room.  Come  to  your  room  —  I  wish  your  reverence 
good-night  —  and  you,  sir,  had  you  not  better  go  back  to 
your  friends  at  the  alehouse?'^  Her  eyes,  ordinarily  so  kind, 
darted  flashes  of  anger  as  she  spoke ;  and  she  tossed  up  her  5 
head  (which  hung  down  commonly)  with  the  mien  of  a 
princess. 

'' Hey-day !''  says  my  lord,  who  was  standing  by  the  fire- 
place —  indeed  he  was  in  the  position  to  which  he  generally 
came  by  that  hour  of  the  evening  —  "'  Hey-day !  Rachel,  10 
what  are  you  in  a  passion  about?  Ladies  ought  never  to 
be  in  a  passion.  Ought  they.  Doctor  Tusher?  though  it 
does  good  to  see  Rachel  in  a  passion  —  Damme,  Lady 
Castlewood,  you  look  dev'lish  handsome  in  a  passion. '^ 

"It  is,  my  lord,  because  Mr.  Henry  Esmond,  having  noth-  15 
ing  to  do  with  his  time  here,  and  not  having  a  taste  for  our 
company,   has  been   to   the   alehouse,    where   he   has   some 
friends." 

My  lord  burst  out  with  a  laugh  and  an  oath  —  "You 

young  slyboots,  you've  been  at  Nancy  Sievewright.     D 20 

the  young  hypocrite,  who'd  have  thought  it  in  him?     I  say, 
lusher,  he's  been  after " 

''Enough,  my  lord,"  said  my  lady;  "don't  insult  me  with 
this  talk." 

"Upon  my  word,"  said  poor  Harry,  ready  to  cry  with  25 
shame  and  mortification,  "the  honour  of  that  young  person 
is  perfectly  unstained  for  me." 

"Oh,  of  course,  of  course,"  says  my  lord,  more  and  more 
laughing  and  tipsy.  "Upon  his  lionour,  Doctor  —  Nancy 
Sieve .  .  ."  3c 

"Take  Mistress  Beatrix  to  bed,"  my  lady  cried  at  this 
moment  to  ^Irs.  Tucker  her  woman,  who  came  in  with  her 
ladyship's  tea.  "Put  her  into  my  room  —  no,  into  yours," 
she  added  quickly.  "  Go,  my  chikl :  go,  I  say  :  not  a  word  ! " 
And  Beatrix,  quite  surprised  at  so  suclden  a  tone  of  authority  y^ 
from  one  who  was  seldom  accustomed  to  raise  her  voice, 
went  out  of  the  room  with  a  scared  countenance,  and  waited 
even  to  burst  out  a-crying  until  she  got  to  the  door  with  Mrs 
Tucker. 


78  HENRY   ESMOND 

For  once  her  mother  took  httle  heed  of  her  sobbing,  and 
continued  to  speak  eagerly  —  "My  lord,"  she  said,  "this 
young  man  —  your  dependent  —  told  me  just  now  in  French 
—  he  was  ashamed  to  speak  in  his  own  language  —  that 
5  he  had  been  at  the  alehouse  all  day,  where  he  has  had  that 
little  wretch  who  is  now  ill  of  the  small-pox  on  his  knee. 
And  he  comes  home  reeking  from  that  place  —  yes,  reeking 
from  it  —  and-  takes  my  boy  into  his  lap  without  shame, 
and  sits  down  by  me,  yes,  by  me.  He  may  have  killed 
10  Frank  for  what  I  know  —  killed  our  child.  Why  was  he 
brought  in  to  cUsgrace  our  house?  Why  is  he  here?  Let 
him  go  —  let  him  go,  I  say,  to-night,  and  pollute  the  place 
no  more." 

She  had  never  once  uttered  a  syllable  of  unkindness  to 

15  Harry  Esmond ;  and  her  cruel  words  smote  the  poor  boy,  so 

that  he  stood  for  some  moments  bewildered  with  grief  and 

rage  at  the  injustice  of  such  a  stab  from  such  a  hand.     He 

turned  quite  white  from  red,  which  he  had  been. 

"I  cannot  help  my  birth,  madam,"  he  said,  "nor  my  other 
20  misfortune.  And  as  for  yoiu'  boy,  if  —  if  my  coming  nigh 
to  him  pollutes  him  now,  it  was  not  so  always.  Good-night, 
my  lord.  Heaven  bless  you  and  yours  for  your  goodness 
to  me.  I  have  tired  her  ladyship's  kindness  out,  and  I  will 
go;"  and  sinking  down  on  his  knee,  Harry  Esmond  took 
25  the  rough  hand  of  his  benefactor  and  kissed  it. 

"  He  wants  to  go  to  the  alehouse  —  let  him  go, "  cried  my  lady. 

"I'm  d d  if  he  shall,"  said  my  lord.     "I  didn't  think 

you  could  be  so  d d  ungrateful,  Rachel." 

Her  reply  was  to  burst  into  a  flood  of  tears,  and  to  quit 
30  the  room  with  a  rapid  glance  at  Plarry  Esmond,  as  my 
lord,  not  heeding  them,  and  still  in  great  good-humour, 
raised  up  his  young  client  from  his  kneeling  posture  (for 
a  thousand  kindnesses  had  caused  the  lad  to  revere  my 
lord  as  a  father),  and  put  his  broad  hand  on  Harry  Esmond's 
35  shoulder. 

"She  was  always  so,"  my  lord  said;  "the  very  notion  of  a 
woman  drives  her  mad.  I  took  to  liquor  on  that  very  account, 
by  Jove,  for  no  other  reason  than  that;  for  she  can't  be 
jealous  of  a  beer-barrel  or  a  bottle  of  rum,  can  she.  Doctor? 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  79 

D it,  look  at  the  maids  —  just  look  at  the  maids  in  the 

house "  (my  lord  pronounced  all  the  words  together  — 
just-look-at-the-maze-in-the-house :  jever-see-such-maze  ?). 
''You  wouldn't  take  a  wife  out  of  Castlewood  now,  would 
you,  Doctor?"  and  my  lord  burst  out  laughing.  5 

The  Doctor,  who  had  been  looking  at  my  Lord  Castlewood 
from  under  his  eyelids,  said,  "But  joking  apart,  and,  my 
lord;  as  a  divine,  I  cannot  treat  the  subject  in  a  jocular  light, 
nor,  as  a  pastor  of  this  congregation,  look  with  anything  but 
sorrow  at  the  idea  of  so  very  young  a  sheep  going  astra}'."         10 

"Sir,"  said  young  Esmond,  bursting  out  indignantly, 
"she  told  me  that  you  yourself  were  a  horrid  old  man,  and 
had  offered  to  kiss  her  in  the  dairy." 

"For  shame,   Henry,''   cried   Doctor  Tusher,   turning  as 
red  as  a  turkey-cock,  while  my  lord  continued  to  roar  with  15 
laughter.     "If  you  hsten  to  the  falsehoods  of  an  abandoned 
girl  -— " 

"She  is  as  honest  as  any  woman  in  England,  and  as  pure 
for  me,"  cried  out  Henry,  "and  as  kind,  and  as  good.  For 
shame  on  you  to  malign  her  ! "  20 

"  Far  be  it  from  me  to  do  so,"  cried  the  Doctor.  "Heaven 
grant  I  may  be  mistaken  in  the  girl,  and  in  you,  sir,  who 
have  a  truly  precocious  genius;  but  that  is  not  the  point 
at  issue  at  present.  It  appears  that  the  small-pox  broke 
out  in  the  little  boy  at  the  Three  Castles;  that  it  was  on  25 
him  when  you  \'isited  the  alehouse,  for  your  own  reasons; 
and  that  you  sate  with  the  child  for  some  time,  and  immedi- 
ately afterwards  with  my  young  lord."  The  Doctor  raised 
his  voice  as  he  spoke,  and  looked  towards  my  lady,  who 
had  now  come  back,  looking  very  pale,  with  a  handker-  30 
chief  in  her  hand. 

"This  is  ail  very  true,  sir,"  said  Lady  Esmond,  looking 
at  the  young  man. 

"  'Tis  to  be  feared  that  he  may  have  brought  the  infection 
with  him."  35 

"From  the  alehouse  —  yes,"  said  my  lady. 

''D it,  I  forgot  when  I  collared  you,  boy,"  cried  my 

lord,  stepping  back.     "Keep  off,   Harry,  my  boy;    there's  - 
no  good  in  running  into  the  wolf's  jaws,  you' know." 


80  HENRY  ESMOND 

My  lady  looked  at  him  with  some  surprise,  and  instantly 
advancing  to  Henry  Esmond,  took  his  hand.  '*I  beg  your 
jDardon,    Henry,'^    she    said;     "I    spoke    very   unkindly.     I 

have  no  right  to  interfere  with  you  —  with  your '' 

5  My  lord  broke  out  into  an  oath.  ''Can't  you  leave  the 
boy  alone,  my  lady?"  She  looked  a  httle  red,  and  faintly 
pressed  the  lad's  hand  as  she  dropped  it. 

"There  is  no  use,  my  lord,"  she  said;   "Frank  was  on  his 
knee  as  he  was  making  pictures,  and  was  running  constantly 
10  from  Henry  to  me.     The  evil  is  done,  if  any." 

"Not  with  me,  damme,"  cried  my  lord.  "I've  been 
smoaking,"  — and  he  lighted  his  pipe  again  with  a  coal  — 
"and  it  keeps  off  infection ;  and  as  the  chsease  is  in  the  village 

—  plague  take  it  —  I  would  have  you  leave  it.     We'll  go 
15  to-morrow  to  Walcote,  my  lady." 

"I  have  no  fear,"  said  my  lady;  "I  may  have  had  it  as 
an  infant,  it  broke  out  in  our  house  then;  and  when  four 
of  my  sisters  had  it  at  home,  two  years  before  our  marriage, 
I  escaped  it,  and  two  of  my  dear  sisters  died." 

20  "I  won't  run  the  risk,"  said  my  lord;  "I'm  as  bold  as  any 
man,  but  I'll  not  bear  that." 

"Take  J^eatrix  with  you  and  go,"  said  my  lady.  "For 
us  the  mischief  is  done ;  and  Tucker  can  wait  upon  us,  who 
has  had  the  disease." 

25  "You  take  care  to  choose  'em  ugly  enough,"  said  my 
lord,  at  which  her  ladyship  hung  down  her  head  and  looked 
foolish :  and  my  lord,  calling  away  Tusher,  bade  him  come 
to  the  oak  parlour  and  have  a  pipe.  The  Doctor  made  a 
low  bow  to  her  ladyship  (of  which  salaams°  he  was  profuse), 

30  and  walked  off  on  his  creaking  square-toes  after  his  patron. 

When  the  lady  and  the  young  man  were  alone  there  was  a 

silen(;e  of  some  moments,  during  which  he  stood  at  the  fire, 

looking   rather   vacantly   at   the   dying  embers,   whilst   her 

ladysiiip  l)usied  herself  witli  her  tambour-frame  and  needles. 

35      "I  am  sorry,"  she  said,  after  a  pause,  in  a  hard,  dry  voice, 

—  "I  repeat  I  am  sorry  that  I  showed  myself  so  ungrateful 
for  the  safety  of  my  son.     It  was  not  at  all  my  wish  that 

,  you  should  leave  us,  I  am  sure,  unless  you  found  pleasure 
elsewhere.      But  you  must  perceive,  Mr.  Esmond,  that  at 


HENRY  ESMOND  81 

your  age,  and  with  your  tastes,  it  is  impossible  that  you 
can  continue  to  stay  upon  the  intimate  footing  in  which 
you  have  been  in  this  family.  You  have  wished  to  go  to 
the  University,  and  I  think  'tis  quite  as  well  that  you  should 
be  sent  thither.  I  did  not  press  this  matter,  thinking  you  5 
a  child,  as  you  are,  indeed,  in  years  —  quite  a  child ;  and  I 
should  never  have  thought  of  treating  you  otherwise  until 
—  until  these  circumstances  came  to  light.  And  I  shall 
beg  my  lord  to  despatch  you  as  quick  as  possible;  and 
will  go  on  with  Frank's  learning  as  well  as  I  can  (I  owe  my  10 
father  thanks  for  a  little  grounding,  and  you,  I'm  sure, 
for  much  that  you  have  taught  me,)  —  and  —  and  I  wish 
you  a  good-night,  Mr.  Esmond." 

And  with  this  she  dropped  a  stately  curtsey,  and,  taking 
her  candle,  w^nt  away  through  the  tapestry  door,  which  15 
led  to  her  apartments.  Esmond  stood  by  the  fireplace, 
blankly  staring  after  her.  Indeed,  he  scarce  seemed  to  see 
until  she  was  gone ;  and  then  her  image  was  impressed  upon 
him,  and  remained  for  ever  fixed  upon  his  memory.  He 
saw  her  retreating,  the  taper  lighting  up  her  marble  face,  20 
her  scarlet  lip  quivering,  and  her  shining  golden  hair.  He 
went  to  his  own  room,  and  to  bed,  where  he  tried  to  read, 
as  his  custom  was ;  but  he  never  knew  what  he  was  reading 
until  afterwards  he  remembered  the  appearance  of  the 
letters  of  the  book  (it  was  in  Montaigne's  Essays^),  and  the  25 
events  of  the  day  passed  before  him  —  that  is,  of  the  last 
hour  of  the  day ;  for  as  for  the  morning,  and  the  poor  milk- 
m^aid  yonder,  he  never  so  much  as  once  thought.  And  he 
could  not  get  to  sleep  until  daylight,  and  woke  with  a 
violent  headache,  and  quite  unrefreshed.  3° 

He  had  brought  the  contagion  with  him  from  the  Three 
Castles  sure  enough,  and  was  presently  laid  up  with  the 
small-pox,  which  spared  the  hall  no  more  than  it  did  the 
cottage. 


82  HENRY   ESMOND 

CHAPTER    IX 

I  HAVE  THE  SMALL-POX,  AND  PREPARE  TO  LEAVE  CASTLEWOOU 

When  Harry  Esmond  passed  through  the  crisis  of  that 
malady,  and  returned  to  health  again,  he  found  that  little 
Frank  Esmond  had  also  suffered  and  rallied  after  the  disease, 
and  the  lady  his  mother  was  down  with  it,  with  a  couple 

5  more  of  the  household.  *'It  was  a  Providence,  for  which 
we  all  ought  to  be  thankful,''  Doctor  Tusher  said,  "that 
my  lady  and  her  son  were  spcired,  while  Death  carried  off 
the  poor  domestics  of  the  house;"  and  rebuked  Harry 
for  asking,  in   his    simple  way,  for  which  we  ought  to  be 

JO  thankful  —  that  the  servants  were  killed,  or  the  gentle  folks 
were  saved?  Nor  could  j^oung  Esmond  agree  in  the  Doctor's 
vehement  protestations  to  my  lady,  when  he  visited  her  dur- 
ing her  convalescence,  that  the  malady  had  not  in  the  least  im- 
paired her  charms,  and  had  not  been  churl  enough  to  injure 

15  the  fair  features  of  the  Viscountess  of  Castlewood;  whereas, 
in  spite  of  these  fine  speeches,  Harry  thought  that  her  lady- 
ship's beauty  was  very  much  injured  by  the  small-pox. 
When  the  marks  of  the  disease  cleared  away,  they  did  not, 
it  is  true,  leave  furrows  or  scars  on  her  face  (except  one, 

£0  perhaps,  on  her  forehead  over  her  left  eyebrow) ;  but  the 
dcli^-acy  of  her  rosy  colour  and  complexion  were  gone :  her 
eyes  had  lost  their  brilliancy,  her  hair  fell,  and  her  face  looked 
older.  It  was  as  if  a  coarse  hand  had  rubbed  off  the  delicate 
tints  of  that  sweet  picture,  and  brought  it,  as  one  has  seen 

25  unskilful  painting-cleaners  do,  to  the  dead  colour.  Also, 
it  must  be  owned,  that  for  a  year  or  two  after  the  malady, 
her  ladyship's  nose  was  swollen  and  redder. 

There  would  be  no  need  to  mention  these  trivialities,  but 
that  they  actually  influenced  many  lives,  as  trifles  will  in 

30  tlie  woi-ld,  whei-e  a  gnat  often  plays  a  greater  part  than  an 
elc^phant,  and  a  molehill, °  as  we  know  in  King  William's 
case,  can  ui^set  an  empire.  When  Tushor  in  his  courtly 
way  (at  which  Harry  Esmond  always  chafed  and  spoke 
scornfully)   vowed  and  protested  that  my  lady's  face  was 


HENRY   ESMOND  83 

none  the  worse  —  the  lad  broke  out  and  said,  "  It  is  worse : 
and  my  mistress  is  not  near  so  handsome  as  she  was;"  on 
which  poor  Lady  Castlewood  gave  a  rueful  smile,  and  a 
look  into  a  little  Venice  glass°  she  had,  which  showed  her, 
I  suppose,  that  what  the  stupid  boy  said  was  only  too  true,  5 
for  she  turned  away  from  the  glass,  and  her  eyes  filled  with 
tears. 

The  sight  of  these  in  Esmond's  heart  always  created  a 
sort  of  rage  of  pity,  and  seeing  them  on  the  face  of  the  lady 
whom  he  loved  best,  the  young  blunderer  sank  down  on  his  10 
knees,  and  besought  her  to  pardon  him,  saying  that  he  was 
a  fool  and  an  idiot,  that  he  was  a  brute  to  make  such  a  speech, 
he"  who  had  caused  her  malady ;  and  Doctor  Tusher  told 
him  that  a  bear  he  was  indeed,  and  a  bear  he  would  remain, 
at  which  speech  poor  young  Esmond  was  so  dumb-stricken  15 
that  he  did  not  even  growl, 

"He  is  my  bear,  and  I  will  not  have  him  baited.  Doctor," 
my  lady  said,  patting  her  hand  kindly  'on  the  boy's  head, 
as  he  was  still  kneehng  at  her  feet.  '"  How  your  hair  has  come 
off  !     And  mine,  too,"  she  added  with  another  sigh.  20 

''It  is  not  for  myself  that  I  cared,"  my  lady  said  to  Harry 
when  the  parson  had  taken  his  leave;  ''but  am  I  very  much 
changed?     Alas!   I  fear  'tis  too  true." 

"Madam,  you  have  the  dearest,  and  kindest,  and  sweetest 
face  in  the  world,  I  think,"  the  lad  said;    and  indeed  he  25 
thought  and  thinks  so. 

"Will  my  lord  think  so  when  he  comes  back?"  the  lady 
asked  with  a  sigh,  and  another  look  at  her  ^^enice  glass. 
"  Suppose  he  should  think  as  you  do,  sir,  that  I  am  hideous  — 
yes,  you  said  hideous  —  he  will  cease  to  care  for  me.  'Tis  30 
all  men  care  for  in  women,  our  little  beauty.  Why  did 
he  select  me  from  among  my  sisters?  'Twas  only  for  that. 
We  reign  but  for  a  day  or  two :  and  be  sure  that  Vashti 
knew  Esther  was  coming." 

"Madam,"  said  Mr.  Esmond,  "Ahasuerus  was  the  Grand  35 
Turk,°  and  to  change  was  the  manner  of  his  country  and 
according  to  his  law." 

"You  are  all  Grand  Turks  for  that  matter,"  said  my 
lady,  "or  would  be  if  you  could.     Come,  Frank,  come,  my 


84  HENRY  ESMOND 

child.  You  are  well,  praised  be  Heaven.  Your  locks  are- 
not  thinned  by  this  dreadful  small-pox:  nor  your  poor 
face  scarred  —  is  it,  my  angel?'' 

Frank  began  to  shout  and  whimper  at  the  idea  of  such 

5  a  misfortune.  From  the  very  earhest  time  the  young  lord 
had  been  taught  to  admire  his  beauty  by  his  mother:  and 
esteemed  it  as  highly  as  any  reigning  toast  valued  hers. 

One  day,  as  he  himself  was  recovering  from  his  fever  and 
illness,  a  pang  of  something  like  shame  shot  across  young 

10  Esmond's  breast,  as  he  remembered  that  he  had  never  once 
during  his  illness  given  a  thought  to  the  poor  girl  at  the 
smithy,  whose  red  cheeks  but  a  month  ago  he  had  been  so 
eager  to  see.  Poor  Nancy !  her  cheeks  had  shared  the  fate 
of  roses,  and  were  withered  now.     She  had  taken  the  illness  on 

15  the  same  day  with  Esmond  —  she  and  her  brother  were 
both  dead  of  the  small-pox,  and  buried  under  the  Castlewood 
yew-trees.  There  was  no  bright  face  looking  now  from 
the  garden,  or  to  cheer  the  old  smith  at  his  lonely  fireside. 
Esmond  would  have  liked  to  have  kissed°  her  in  her  shroud 

20  (like  the  lass  in  Mr.  Prior's  pretty  poem°) ;  but  she  rested 
many  a  foot  below  the  ground,  when  Esmond  after  his 
malady  first  trod  on  it. 

Doctor  Tusher  brought  the  news  of  this  calamity,  about 
which  Harry  Esmond  longed  to  ask,  but  did  not  like.     He 

25  said  almost  the  whole  village  had  been  stricken  with  the 
pestilence;  seventeen  persons  were  dead  of  it,  among  them 
mentioning  the  names  of  poor  Nancy  and  her  little  l)rother. 
He  did  not  fail  to  say  how  thankful  we  survivors  ought  to 
be.     It  being  this  man's  business  to  flatter  and  make  sermons, 

3c  it  must  be  owned  he  was  most  industrious  in  it,  and  was 
doing  the  one  or  the  other  all  day. 

And  so  Nancy  was  gone;  and  Harry  Esmond  blushed  that 
he  had  not  a  single  tear  for  her,  and  fell  to  composing  an 
elegy   in    I>atin    verses   over   the   rustic   little   beauty.     Hg 

35  bade  the  dryads  mourn  and  the  rivcr-nymphs°  deplore 
her.  As  her  father  followed  the  calling  of  Vulcan,  lie  saitl 
that  surely  she  was  like  a  daughter  of  Veims,  though  Sieve- 
wright's  wife  was  an  ugly  shrew,  as  he  remembered  to  have 
heard  afterwards.     He  made  a  long  face,  but,  in  truth,  felt 


HENRY   ESMOND  85 

scarcely  more  sorrowful  than  a  mute°  at  a  funeral.  These 
first  passions  of  men  and  women  are  mostly  abortive;  and 
are  dead  almost  before  they  are  born.  Esmond  could 
repeat,  to  his  last  day,  some  of  the  doggrel  lines  in  which 
his  muse  bewailed  his  pretty  lass;  not  without  shame  to  5 
remember  how  bad  the  verses  were,  and  how  good  he  thought 
them ;  how  false  the  grief,  and  j'et  how  he  was  rather  proud 
of  it.  'Tis  an  error,  surely,  to  talk  of  the  simplicity  of  youth. 
I  think  no  persons  are  more  hypocritical,  and  have  a  more 
affected  behaviour  to  one  another,  than  the  young.  They  la 
deceive  themselves  and  each  other  with  artifices  that  do  not 
impose  upon  men  of  the  world;  and  so  we  get  to  under- 
stand truth  better,  and  grow  simpler  as  we  grow  older. 

When  my  lady  heard  of  the  fate  vdiicli  had  l:)efallen  poor 
Nancy,   she   said  nothing  so   long  as  Tusher  was  by,   but  15 
when  he  was  gone,  she  took  Harry  EsmoncFs  hand  and  said : 

"Harry,  I  beg  your  pardon  for  those  cruel  words  I  used 
on  the  night  you  were  taken  ill.  I  am  shocked  at  the  fate 
of  the  poor  creature,  and  am  sure  that  nothing  had  happened 
of  that  with  which,  in  my  anger,  I  charged  you.  And  the  2c 
very  first  day  we  go  out,  you  must  take  me  to  the  black- 
smith, and  we  must  see  if  there  is  anything  I  can  do  to  con- 
sole the  poor  old  man.  Poor  man  !  to  lose  both  his  children  ! 
What  should  I  do  without  mine?'^ 

And  this  was,  indeed,  the  very  first  walk  which  my  lady  25 
took,  leaning  on  Esmond's  arm,  after  her  illness.     But  hej' 
visit    brought  no    consolation    to   the    old  father;   and    he 
showed  no  softness,  or  desire  to  speak.     "The  Lord  gave 
and  took  away,"  he  said;    and  he  knew  what  His  servant's 
duty  was.     He  wanted  for  nothing  — less  now  than  ever  30 
before,   as  there   were  fewer  mouths   to   feed.     He  wished 
her  ladyship  and  Master  Esmond  good-morning  —  he  had 
grown  tall  in  his  illness,  and  was  but  very  little  marked; 
and  with  this,  and  a  surly  bow,  he  went  in  from  the  smithy 
to  the  house,  leaving  my  lady,  somewhat  silenced  and  shame-  35 
faced,  at  the  door.     He  had  a  handsome  stone  put  up  for  his 
two  children,  which  may  be  seen  in  Castlewood  churchyard 
to  this  very  day;   and  before  a  year  was  out  his  own  name 
tvas  upon  the  stone.     In  the  presence  of  Death,  that  sover- 


86  HENRY   ESMOND 

eign  ruler,  a  woman's  coquetry  is  scared;  and  her  jealousy 
will  hardly  pass  the  boundaries  of  that  grim  kingdom, 
Tis  entirely  of  the  earth,  that  passion,  and  expires  in  the 
cold  blue  air,  beyond  our  sphere. 

5  At  length,  when  the  danger  was  quite  over,  it  was  an- 
nounced that  my  lord  and  his  daughter  would  return.  Es- 
mond well  remembered  the  day.  The  lady,  his  mistress, 
was  in  a  flurry  of  fear :  before  my  lord  came,  she  went  into 
her  room,  and  returned  from  it  with  reddened  cheeks.     Her 

10  fate  was  about  to  be  decided.  Her  beauty  was  gone  — 
was  her  reign,  too,  over?  A  minute  would  say.  My  lord 
came  riding  over  the  bridge  —  he  could  be  seen  from  the 
great  window,  clad  in  scarlet,  and  mounted  on  his  grey 
hackney  —  his  little  daughter  ambled  by  him  in  a  bright 

15  riding-dress  of  blue,  on  a  shining  chestnut  horse.  My 
lady  leaned  against  the  great  mantelpiece,  looking  on, 
with  one  hand  on  her  heart  —  she  seemed  only  the  more 
pale  for  those  red  marks  on  either  cheek.  She  put  her 
handkerchief  to  her  eyes,  and  withdrew  it,  laughing  hysteri- 

20  cally  —  the  cloth  was  quite  red  with  the  rouge  when  she 
took  it  away.  She  ran  to  her  room  again,  and  came  back 
with  pale  cheeks  and  red  eyes  —  her  son  in  her  hand  —  just 
as  my  lord  entered,  accompanied  by  young  Esmond,  who 
had  gone  out  to  meet  his  protector,  and  to  hold  his  stirrup 

25  as  he  descended  from  horseback. 

"What,  Harry,  boy!''  my  lord  said,  good-naturedly, 
"you  look  as  gaunt  as  a  grejdiound.  The  small-pox  hasn't 
improved  your  beauty,  and  your  side  of  the  house  hadn't 
never  too  much  of  it  —  ho,  ho  !" 

30  And  he  laughed,  and  sprang  to  the  ground  with  no  small 
agility,  looking  handsome  and  red,  with  a  jolly  face  and  brown 
hair,  like  a  Beefeater;  Esmond  kneeling  again,  as  soon  as 
his  patron  had  descended,  performed  his  homage,  and  then 
went  to  greet  the  little  Beatrix,  and  help  her  from  her  horse. 

35      "Fie!    how  yellow  you  look,"  she  said;    "and  there  are 

one,  two,  red  holes  in  your  face;"  which,  indeed,  was  very 

true;    Harry  Esmond's  harsh  countenance  bearing,  as  long 

as  it  continued  to  be  a  human  face,  the  marks  of  the  disease. 

My  l(jrd  laughed  again,  in  high  good-humour. 


1 


HENRY   ESMOND  87 

"D it!"  he  said,  with  one  of  his  usual  oaths,   "the 

little  slut  sees  everything.     She  saw  the  Dowager's  paint 
t'other  day,  and  asked  her  why  she  wore  that  red  stuff  — 
didn't  you,  Trix?    and  the  Tower;    and  St.  James's°;    and 
the  play ;   and  the  Prince  George,  and  the  Princess  Anne°  —  5 
didn't  you,  Trix?" 

'■'They  are  both  very  fat,  and  smelt  of  brandy,"  the 
child  said. 

Papa  roared  with  laughing. 

"  Brandy ! "  he  said.    *'  And  how  do  you  know.  Miss  Pert  ?  "  xq 

"Because  your  lordship  smells  of  it  after  supper,  when  I 
embrace  you  before  you  go  to  bed,"  said  the  young  lady, 
who,  indeed,  was  as  pert  as  her  father  said,  and  looked  as 
beautiful  a  httle  gipsy  as  eyes  ever  gazed  on. 

"And  now  for  my  lady,"  said  my  lord,  going  up  the  stairs,  15 
and  passing  under  the  tapestr}^  curtain  that  hung  before  the 
drawing-room  door.  Esmond  remembered  that  noble  figure, 
handsomely  arrayed  in  scarlet.  Within  the  last  few  months 
he  himself  had  grown  from  a  boy  to  be  a  man,  and  with 
his  figure  his  thoughts  had  shot  up,  and  grown  manly.  20 

My  lady's  countenance,  of  which  Harry  Esmond  was 
accustomed  to  watch  the  changes,  and  with  a  solicitous  af- 
fection to  note  and  interpret  the  signs  of  gladness  or  care, 
wore  a  sad  and  depressed  look  for  many  weeks  after  her 
lord's  return;  during  which  it  seemed  as  if,  by  caresses  25 
and  entreaties,  she  strove  to  win  him  back  from  some  ill- 
humorr  he  had,  and  which  he  did  not  choose  to  throw  off. 
In  her  eagerness  to  please  him  she  practised  a  hundred 
of  those  arts  which  had  formerly  charmed  him,  but  which 
seemed  now  to  have  lost  their  potency.  Her  songs  did  30 
not  amuse  him;  and  she  hushed  them  and  the  children 
when  in  his  presence.  My  lord  sat  silent  at  his  dinner, 
drinking  greatly,  his  lady  opposite  to  him,  looking  furtively 
at  his  face,  though  also  speechless.  Her  silence  annoyed 
him  as  much  as  her  speech;  and  he  would  peevishly,  and  35 
with  an  oath,  ask  her  why  she  held  her  tongue  and  looked 
so  ghmi,  or  he  would  roughly  check  her  when  speaking,  and 
bid  her  not  talk  nonsense.  It  seemed  as  if,  since  his  return, 
nothing  she  could  do  or  say  could  please  him. 


88  HENRY   ESMOND 

When  a  master  and  mistress  are  at  strife  in  a  house,  the 
subordinates  in  the  family  take  the  one  side  or  the  other. 
Harry  Esmond  stood  in  so  great  fear  of  my  lord,  that  he 
would  run  a  league  barefoot  to  do  a  message  for  him ;  but 
3  his  attachment  for  Lady  Esmond  was  such  a  passion  of 
grateful  regard,  that  to  spare  her  a  grief,  or  to  do  her  a 
service,  he  would  have  given  his  life  daily;  and  it  was  by 
the  very  depth  and  intensity  of  this  regard  that  he  began 
to  divine^  how  unhappy  his  adored  lady's  life  was,  and  that 

10  a  secret  care  (for  she  never  spoke  of  her  anxieties)  was 
weighing  upon  her. 

Can  any  one,  who  has  passed  through  the  world  and 
watched  the  nature  of  men  and  women  there,  doubt  what 
had  befallen  her?     I  have  seen,   to  be  sure,   some  people 

15  carry  down  with  them  into  old  age  the  actual  bloom  of  their 
youthful  love,  and  I  know  that  Mr.  Thomas  Parr°  lived  to  be 
a  hundred  and  sixty  years  old.  But  for  all  that,  threescore 
and  ten  is  the  age  of  men,  and  few  get  beyond  it;  and  'tis 
certain  that  a  man  who  marries  for  mere  beaux  yeux°  as 

20  my  lord  did,  considers  his  part  of  the  contract  at  end  when 
the  woman  ceases  to  fulfil  hers,  and  his  love  does  not  survive 
her  beauty.  I  know  'tis  often  otherwise,  I  say;  and  can 
think  (as  most  men  in  their  own  experience  may)  of  many 
a  house,  where,  lighted  in  early  years,  the  sainted  lamp  of 

25  love  hath  never  been  extinguished ;  but  so,  there  is  Mr. 
Parr,  and  so  there  is  the  great  giant  at  the  fair  that  is  eight 
feet  high  —  exceptions  to  men  —  and  that  poor  lamp 
whereof  I  speak  that  lights  at  first  the  nuptial  chamber 
is  extinguished   by   a   hundred   winds   and   draughts   down 

30  the  chimney,  or  sputters  out  for  want  of  feeding.  And  then 
—  and  then  it  is  Chloe,  in  the  dark,  stark  awake,  and  Strephon° 
snoring  unheeding;  or  vice  versa,  'tis  poor  Strephon  that  has 
married  a  heartless  jilt  and  awoke  out  of  that  absurd  vision 
of  conjugal  felicity,  which  was  to  last  for  ever,  and  is  over 

15  like  any  other  dream.  One  and  other  has  made  his  bed, 
and  so  must  lie  in  it,  until  that  final  day,  when  life  ends, 
and  they  sleep  separate. 

About  this 'time  young  Esmond,  who  had  a  knack  of 
stringing  verses,  turned  some  of  Ovid's  epistles  into  rhymes, 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  89 

and  brought  them  to  his  lady  for  her  delectation.  Those 
which  treated  of  forsaken  women  touched  her  immensely, 
Harry  remarked;  and  when  CEnone°  called  after  Paris, 
and  Medea  bade  Jason  come  back  again,  the  Lady  of  Castle-  • 
(vood  sighed  and  said  she  thought  that  part  of  the  verses  5 
was  the  most  pleasing.  Indeed,  she  would  have  chopped 
up  the  Dean,  her  old  father,  in  order  to  bring  her  husband 
back  again.  But  her  beautiful  Jason  was  gone,  as  beautiful 
Jasons  will  go,  and  the  poor  enchantress  had  never  a  spell 
to  keep  him.  10 

My  lord  was  only  sulky  as  long  as  his  wife's  anxious  face 
or  behaviour  seemed  to  upbraid  him.  When  she  had  got 
to  master  these,  and  to  show  an  outwardly  cheerful  counte- 
nance and  behaviour,  her  husband's  good-humour  returned 
partially,  and  he  swore  and  stormed  no  longer  at  dinner,  15 
but  laughed  sometimes  and  yawned  unrestrainedly ;  absenting 
himself  often  from  home,  inviting  more  company  thither, 
passing  the  greater  part  of  his  days  in  the  hunting-field, 
or  over  the  bottle  as  before;  but,  with  this  difference,  that 
the  poor  wife  could  no  longer  see  now,  as  she  had  done  20 
formerly,  the  light  of  love  kindled  in  his  eyes.  He  was  with 
her,  but  that  flame  was  out;  and  that  once  welcome  beacon 
no  more  shone  there. 

What  were  this  lady's  feelings  when  forced  to  admit  the 
truth  whereof  her  foreboding  glass  had  given  her  only  too  25 
true  warning,  that  with  her  beauty  her  reign  had  ended, 
and  the  days  of  her  love  were  over?     What  does  a  seaman 
do  in  a  storm  if  mast  and  rudder  are  carried  away?     He 
ships  a  jurymast,  and  steers  as  he  best  can  with  an  oar. 
What  happens  if  your  roof  falls  in  a  tempest?     After  the  3° 
first   stun   of   the   calamity   the   sufferer   starts   up,   gropes 
around  to  see  that  the  children  are  safe,  and  puts  them  under 
a  shed  out  of  the  rain.     If  the  palace  burns  down,  you  take 
shelter  in  the  barn.     What  man's  life  is  not  overtaken  by 
one  or  more  of  these  tornadoes  that  send  us  out  of  the  course,  35 
and  fling  us  on  rocks  to  shelter  as  best  we  may? 

When  Lady  Castle  wood  found  that  her  great  ship  had 
gone  down,  she  began  as  best  she  might,  after  she  had  rallied 
from  the  effect  of  the  loss,  to  put  out  small  ventures  of 


90  HENRY  ESMOND 

happiness;  and  hope  for  little  gains  and  returns,  as  a 
merchant  on  'Change,  °  indocilis  pauperiem  pati°  having 
lost  his  thousands,  embarks  a  few  guineas  upon  the  next 
•  ship.  She  laid  out  her  all  upon  her  children,  indulging 
5  them  beyond  all  measure,  as  was  inevitable  with  one  of 
her  kindness  of  disposition;  giving  all  her  thoughts  to 
their  welfare,  —  learning,  so  that  she  might  teach  them, 
and  improving  her  own  many  natural  gifts  and  feminine 
accomplishments  that  she  might  impart  them  to  her  young 

10  ones.  To  be  doing  good  for  some  one  else,  is  the  life  of  most 
good  women.  They  are  exuberant  of  kindness,  as  it  were, 
and  must  impart  it  to  some  one.  She  made  herself  a  good 
scholar  of  French,  Italian,  and  Latin,  having  been  grounded 
in  these  by  her  father  in  her  youth :   hiding  these  gifts  from 

15  her  husband,  out  of  fear,  perhaps,  that  they  should  offend 
him,  for  my  lord  was  no  bookman,  —  pish'd  and  psha'd 
at  the  notion  of  learned  ladies,  and  would  have  been  angry 
that  his  wife  could  construe  out  of  a  Latin  book  of  which 
he   could   scarce   understand   two   words.     Young   Esmond 

20  was  usher,  °  or  house  tutor,  under  her  or  over  her,  as  it 
might  happen.  Daring  my  lord's  many  absences,  these 
school-days  would  go  on  uninterruptedly :  the  mother  and 
daughter  learning  with  surprising  quickness ;  the  latter  by 
fits  and  starts  only,  and  as  suited  her  wayward  humour.     As 

25  for  the  little  lord,  it  must  be  owned  that  he  took  after  his 
father  in  the. matter  of  learning,  —  liked  marbles,  and  play, 
and  the  great  horse,  and  the  little  one  which  his  father 
brought  him,  and  on  which  he  took  him  out  a-hunting, 
a  great  deal  better  than  Corderius  and  Lily° ;    marshalled 

30  the  village  boys,  and  had  a  little  court  of  them,  already 
flogging  them,  and  domineering  over  them  with  a  fine  im- 
perious spirit  that  made  his  father  laugh  when  he  beheld  it, 
and  liis  mother  fondly  warn  him.  The  cook  had  a  son,  the 
woodman  had  two,  the  big  lad  at  the  porter's  lodge  took 

35  his  cuifs  and  his  orders.  Doctor  Tasher  said  he  was  a  young 
nobleman  of  gallant  spirit;  and  Harry  Esmond,  who  was  his 
tutor,  and  eight  years  his  little  lordship's  senior,  had  hard 
work  sometimes  to  keep  his  own  temper,  and  hold  his  author- 
ity over  his  rebellious  little  chief  and  kinsman. 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  91 

In  a  couple  of  years  after  that  calamity  had  befallen 
which  had  robbed  Lady  Castlewood  of  a  little  —  a  very 
little  —  of  her  beauty,  and  her  careless  husband's  heart 
(if  the  truth  must  be  told,  my  lady  had  found  not  only  that 
her  reign  was  over,  but  that  her  successor  was  appointed,  5 
a  Princess  of  a  noble  house  in  Drury  Lane°  somewhere, 
who  was  installed  and  visited  by  my  lord  at  the  town  eight 
miles  off  —  pudet  hoec  opprobria  dicere  nobis°)  —  a  great 
change  had  taken  place  in  her  mind,  which,  by  struggles 
only  known  to  herself,  at  least  never  mentioned  to  any  one,  la 
and  unsuspected  by  the  person  who  caHised  the  pain  she 
endured  —  had  been  schooled  into  such  a  condition  as 
she  could  not  very  hkely  have  imagined  possible  a  score 
of  months  since,  before  her  misfortunes  had  begun. 

She  had  oldened  in  that  time,  as  people  do  who  suffer  15 
silently  great  mental  pain :    and  learned  much  that  she  had 
never  suspected   before.      She  w^as   taught  by  that    bitter 
teacher  Misfortune.     A  child,  the  mother  of  other  children, 
but  two  years  back,  her  lord  was  a  god  to  her;    his  words 
her  law ;    his  smile  her  sunshine ;    his  lazy  commonplaces  20 
listened  to  eagerly,  as  if  they  were  words  of  wisdom  —  all 
his  wishes  and  freaks  obeyed  with  a  servile  devotion.     She 
had  been  my  lord's  chief  slave  and  blind  worshipper.     Some 
women  bear  farther  than  this,  and  submit  not  only  to  neglect 
but  to  unfaithfulness  too  —  but  here  this  lady's  allegiance  25 
had  failed  her.     Her  spirit  rebelled,  and  disowned  any  more 
obedience.     First  she  had  to  bear  in  secret  the  passion   of 
losing  the  adored  object ;   then  to  get  a  farther  initiation, 
and  to  find  this  worshipped  being  was  but  a  clumsy  idol : 
then  to  admit  the  silent  truth,  that  it  w^as  she  was  superior,  30 
and  not  the  monarch  her  master :    that  she  had  thoughts 
which  his  brains  could  never  master,   and  was  the  better 
of  the  two;    quite  separate  from  my  lord  although  tied  to 
him,  and  bound  as  almost  all  people  (save  a  very  happy  few) 
to  work  all  her  life  alone.     My  lord  sat  in  his  chair,  laughing  35 
his  laugh,  cracking  his  joke,  his  face  flushing  with  wine  — 
my  lady  in  her  place  over  against  him  —  he  never  suspecting 
that  his  superior  was  there,  in  the  calm  resigned  lady,  cold 
of  manner,  with   downcast   eyes.     When  he   was  merry  in 


92  HENRY  ESMOND 

his  cups,   he  would  make  jokes  about  her  coldness,   and^ 

"  D n  it,  now  my  lady  is  gone,  we  will  have  t'other  bottle,'' 

he  would  say.  He  was  frank  enough  in  telling  his  thoughts, 
such  as  they  were.  There  was  little  mystery  about  my 
5  lord's  words  or  actions.  His  fair  Rosamond  did  not  live 
in  a  labyrinth,  like  the  lady  of  Mr.  Addison's  opera, °  but 
paraded  with  painted  cheeks  and  a  tipsy  retinue  in  the 
country  town.  Had  she  a  mind  to  be  revenged.  Lady 
Castle  wood  could  have  found  the  way  to  her  rival's  house 

lo  easily  enough ;  and  if  she  had  come  with  bowl  and  dagger, 
would  have  been  routed  off  the  ground  by  the  enemy,  with 
a  volley  of  Billingsgate,  °  which  the  fair  person  always  kept 
by  her. 

Meanwhile,  it  has  been  said,  that  for  Harry  Esmond  his 

15  benefactress's  sweet  face  had  lost  none  of  its  charms.  It 
had  always  the  kindest  of  looks  and  smiles  for  him  —  smiles, 
not  so  gay  and  artless  perhaps  as  those  which  Lady  Castle- 
wood  had  formerly  worn,  when,  a  child  herself,  playing  with 
her   children,    her   husband's   pleasure   and   authority   were 

20  all  she  thought  of ;  but  out  of  her  griefs  and  cares,  as  will 
happen  I  think  when  these  trials  fall  upon  a  kindly  heart, 
and  are  not  too  unbearable,  grew  up  a  number  of  thoughts 
and  excellencies  which  had  never  come  into  existence,  had 
not  her  sorrow  and   misfortunes  engendered  them.     Sure, 

25  occasion  is  the  father  of  most  that  is  good  in  us.  As  you 
have  seen  the  awkward  fingers  and  clumsy  tools  of  a  prisoner 
cut  and  fashion  the  most  delicate  little  pieces  of  carved 
work;  or  achieve  the  most  prodigious  underground  labours, 
and  cut  through  walls  of  masonry,  and  saw  iron   bars   and 

30  fetters ;  'tis  misfortune  that  awakens  ingenuity,  or  fortitude, 
or  endurance,  in  hearts  where  these  (jualities  had  never 
come  to  life  but  for  the  circumstance  which  gave  them  a 
being. 

'"Twas   after   Jason   left   her,    no   doubt,"   Lady   Castle- 

35  wood  onc^e  said  with  one  of  her  smiles  to  young  Esmond 
(who  was  reading  to  her  a  version  of  certain  lines  out  of 
Euripides),  "that  Medea  became  a  learned  woman,  and  a 
great  enchantress." 

"And  she  could  conjure  the  stars  out  of  heaven,"  the 


HENRY  ESMOND  93 

young  tutor  added,  ''but  she  could  not  bring  Jason  back 
again." 

"What  do  you  mean?''  asked  my  lady,  very  angry. 

"Indeed  I  mean  nothing,"  said  the  other,   "save  what 
I  have  read  in  books.     What  should  I  know  about  such  5 
matters?     I  have  seen  no  woman  save  you  and  little  Beatrix, 
and  the  parson's  wife  and  my  late  mistress,  and  your  lady- 
ship's women  here." 

"The  men  w^ho  wrote  your  books,"  says  my  lady,  "your 
Horaces,  and  Ovids,  and  Virgils,°  as  far  as  I  know  of  them,  10 
all  thought  ill  of  us,  as  all  the  heroes  they  wrote  about  used 
us  basely.  We  were  bred  to  be  slaves  always;  and  even 
of  our  own  times,  as  you  are  still  the  only  lawgivers,  I  think 
our  sermons  seem  to  say  that  the  best  woman  is  she  who 
bears  her  master's  chains  most  gracefully.  'Tis  a  pity  there  15 
are  no  nunneries°  permitted  by  our  church :  Beatrix  and  I 
would  fly  to  one,  and  end  our  days  in  peace  there  away 
from  you." 

"And  is  there  no  slavery  in  a  convent?"  says  Esmond. 

"At  least  if  women  are  slaves  there,  no  one  sees  them,"  20 
answered  the  lady.  "They  don't  work  in  street-gangs  with 
the  publick  to  jeer  them  :  and  if  they  suffer,  suffer  in  private. 
Here  comes  my  lord  home  from  hunting.  Take  away  the 
books.  M}'"  lord  does  not  love  to  see  them.  Lessons  are 
over  for  to-day,  Mr.  Tutor."  And  with  a  curtsey  and  a  smile  25 
she  would  end  this  sort  of  colloquy. 

Indeed,  "Mr.  Tutor,"  as  my  lady  called  Esmond,  had 
now  business  enough  on  his  hands  at  Castlewood  House. 
He  had  three  pupils,  his  lady  and  her  two  children,  at  whose 
lessons  she  would  always  be  present :  besides  writing  my  3° 
lord's  letters,  and  arranging  his  accompts  for  him  —  when 
these  could  be  got  from  Esmond's  indolent  patron. 

Of  the  pupils  the  two  young  people  were  but  lazy  scholars, 
and  as  my  lady  would  admit  no  discipline  such  as  was  then 
in  use,  my  lord's  son  only  learned  what  he  liked,  which  35 
was  but  little,  and  never  to  his  life's  end  could  be  got  to  con- 
strue more  than  six  lines  of  Virgil.  ^Mistress  Beatrix  chattered 
French  prettily  from  a  very  early  age;  and  sang  sweetly, 
but    this    was    from    her    mother's    teaching  —  not    Harry 


94  HENRY   ESMOND 

Esmond's,  who  could  scarce  distinguish  between  ''Green 
Sleeves"  and  "Lillibullero°'';  although  he  had  no  greater 
delight  in  life  than  to  hear  the  ladies  sing.  He  sees  them 
now  (will  he  ever  forget  them  ?)  as  they  used  to  sit  together 
5  of  the  summer  evenings  —  the  two  golden  heads  over  the 
page  —  the  child's  little  hand  and  the  mother's  beating  the 
time,  with  their  voices  rising  and  falling  in  unison. 

But  if  the   children  were  careless,   'twas  a  wonder  how 
eagerly  the  mother  learnt  from  her  young  tutor  —  and  taught 

10  him  too.  The  happiest  instinctive  faculty  was  this  lady's  — 
a  faculty  for  discerning  latent  beauties  and  hidden  graces  of 
books,  especially  books  of  poetry,  as  in  a  walk  she  would 
spy  out  field-flowers  and  make  posies  of  them,  such  as  no 
other  hand  could.     She  was  a  critick  not  by  reason  but  by 

15  feeling;  the  sweetest  commentator  of  those  books  they 
read  together :  and  the  happiest  hours  of  young  Esmond's 
life,  perhaps,  were  those  past  in  the  company  of  this  kind 
mistress  and  her  children. 

These  happy  days  were  to  end  soon,  however;  and  it  was 

20  by  the  Lady  Castle  wood's  own  decree  that  they  were  brought 
to  a  conclusion.  It  happened  about  Christmas-time,  Harry 
Esmond  being  now  past  sixteen  years  of  age,  that  his  old 
comrade,  adversary,  and  friend,  Tom  Tusher,  returned  from 
his  school  in  London,  a  fair,  well-grown,  and  sturdy  lad,  who 

25  was  about  to  enter  college,  with  an  exhibition  from  his  school, 
and  a  prospect  of  after  promotion  in  the  church.  Tom 
Tusher's  talk  was  of  nothing  but  Cambridge  now:  and  the 
boys,  who  were  good  friends,  examined  each  other  eagerly 
about    their    progress    in    books.     Tom    had    learned    some 

30  Greek  and  Hebrew,  besides  Latin  in  which  he  was  pretty 
well  skilled,  and  also  had  given  himself  to  mathematical 
studies  under  his  father's  guidance,  who  was  a  i)r()ficient  in 
those  sciences,  of  which  Esmond  knew  nothing,  nor  could 
he  write  Latin  so  well  as  Tom,  though  be  could  talk  it  better, 

35  having  loeen  taught  by  his  dear  friend  the  Jesuit  Father, 
for  wliose  memory  the  lad  ever  retained  the  warmest  affection, 
reading  his  books,  keeping  his  swords  clean  in  the  little 
crypt  where  the  Father  had  shown  them  to  Esmond  on  the 
night  of  his  visit;   and  oft(>n  of  a  night,  sitting  in  tlie  chap- 


HENRY   ESMOND  95 

Iain's  room,  which  he  inhabited,  over  his  books,  his  verses, 
and  rubbish,  with  which  the  lad  occupied  himself,  he  would 
look  up  at  the  window,  thinking  he  wished  it  might  open 
and  let  in  the  good  Father,  He  had  come  and  passed  away 
like  a  dream :  but  for  the  swords  and  books  Harry  might  5 
almost  think  the  Father  was  an  imagination  of  his  mincl  — 
and  for  two  letters  which  had  come  to  him,  one  from  abroad 
full  of  advice  and  affection,  another  soon  after  he  had  been 
confirmed  by  the  Bishop  of  Hexton,  in  which  Father 
Holt  deplored  his  falling  away.  But  Harry  Esmond  felt  ic 
so  confident  now  of  his  being  in  the  right,  and  of  his 
own  powers  as  a  casuist,  that  he  thought  he  was  able  to 
face  the  Father  himself  in  argument,  and  possibly  convert 
him. 

To  work  upon  the  faith  of  her  young  pupil,  Esmond's  kind  15 
mistress  sent  to  the  library  of  her  father  the  Dean,  who  had 
been  distinguished  in  the  disputes  of  the  late  king's  reign; 
and,  an  old  soldier  now,  had  hung  up  his  weapons  of  contro- 
versy. These  he  took  clown  from  his  shelves  willingly  for 
young  Esmond,  whom  he  benefited  by  his  own  personal  20 
advice  and  instruction.  It  did  not  require  much  persuasion 
to  induce  the  boy  to  worship  with  his  beloved  mistress. 
And  the  good  old  non-juring  Dean  flattered  himself  with  a 
conversion  which  in  truth  was  owing  to  a  much  gentler  and 
fairer  persuader.  25 

Under  her  ladyship's  kind  eyes  (my  lord's  being  sealed  in 
sleep  pretty  generally),  Esmond  read  many  volumes  of  the 
works  of  the  famous  British  Divines  of  the  last  age,  and  w^as 
familiar   with   Wake   and   Sherlock,    with   Stillingfleet   and 
Patrick. °     His  mistress  never  tired  to  listen  or  to  read,  to  3a 
pursue  the  texts  with  fond  comments,  to  urge  those  points 
which  her  fancy  dwelt  on  most,  or  her  reason  deemed  most 
important.     Since  the  death  of  her  father  the  Dean,  this 
lady  hath  admitted  a  certain  latitude  of  theological  reading, 
which  her  orthodox  father  would  never  have  allowed;    his  35 
favourite  writers  appealing  more  to  reason  and  antiquity 
than  to  the  passions  or  imaginations  of  their  readers,  so  that 
the  works  of  Bishop  Taylor,  na}^,  those  of  Mr.  Baxter  and" 
Mr.   Law,°  have,  in  reality,   found  more  favour  with  my 


96  HENRY   ESMOND 

Lady  Castlewood,   than  the  severer   volumes  of  our  great 
Enghsh  schoolmen. 

In  later  life,  at  the  University,  Esmond  reopened  the  con- 
troversy, and  pursued  it  in  a  very  different  manner,  when 
5  his  patrons  had  determined  for  him  that  he  was  to  embrace 
the  ecclesiastical  life.  But  though  his  mistress's  heart  was 
in  this  calling,  his  own  never  was  much.  After  that  first 
fervour  of  simple  devotion,  which  his  beloved  Jesuit-priest 
had  inspired  in  him,   speculative  theology  took  but  little 

10  hold  upon  the  young  man's  mind.  When  his  early  credulity 
was  disturbed,  and  his  saints  and  virgins  taken  out  of  his 
worship,  to  rank  little  higher  than  the  chvinities  of  Olympus, ° 
his  belief  became  acquiescence  rather  than  ardour;  and  he 
made  his  mind "  up  to  assume  the  cassock  and  bands,   as 

15  another  man  does  to  wear  a  breastplate  and  jack-boots,  or 
to  mount  a  merchant's  desk,  for  a  livelihood,  and  from  obe- 
dience and  necessity,  rather  than  from  choice.  There  were 
scores  of  such  men  in  Mr.  Esmond's  time  at  the  universities, 
who  were  going  to  the  church  with  no  better  calling  than  his. 

20  When  Thomas  Tusher  was  gone,  a  feeling  of  no  small 
depression  and  disquiet  fell  upon  young  Esmond,  of  which, 
though  he  did  not  cxDmplain,  his  kind  mistress  must  have 
divined  the  cause;  for  soon  after  she  showed  not  only  that 
she    understood    the    reason    of    Harry's    melancholy,    but 

25  could  provide  a  remedy  for  it.  Her  habit  was  thus  to  watch, 
unobservedly,  those  to  whom  duty  or  affection  bound  her, 
and  to  prevent  their  designs,  or  to  fulfil  them,  when  she  had 
the  power.  It  was  tliis  lady's  disposition  to  think  kind- 
nesses, and  devise  silent  bounties,  and  to  scheme  benevok;nce 

30  for  those  about  her.  We  take  su(;li  goodness,  for  the  most 
part,  as  if  it  was  our  due;  the  Marys°  who  bring  ointment 
for  our  feet  get  but  little  thanks.  Some  of  us  never  feel 
this  devotion  at  all,  or  are  moved  by  it  to  gratitude  or 
acknowledgment ;   others  only  recall  it  years  after,  when  the 

35  days  are  past  in  which  those  sweet  kindnesses  were  spent 
on  us,  and  we  offer  back  our  return  for  the  debt  by  a  poor 
tardy  i)ayment  of  tears.  Then  forgotten  tones  of  love 
recur  to  us,  and  kind  glances  shine  out  of  the  past  ^  oh,  so 
bright  and  clear  !  —  oh,  so  longed  after  !  —  because  they  arc 


HENRY  ESMOND  97 

out  of  reach;  as  holiday  musick  from  withinside  a  prison 
wall  —  or  sunshine  seen  through  the  bars ;  more  prized 
because  unattainable  —  more  bright  because  of  the  contrast 
of  present  darkness  and  solitude,  whence  there  is  no  escape. 

AH  tlie  notice,  then,  which  Lady  Castlewood  seemed  to  5 
take  of  Harry  Esmond's  melancholy,  upon  Tom  Tusher's 
departure,  was,  by  a  gaiety  unusual  to  her,  to  attempt  to 
dispel  his  gloom.  She  made  his  three  scholars  (herself 
being  the  chief  one)  more  cheerful  than  ever  they  had  been 
before,  and  more  docile,  too,  all  of  them  learning  and  read-  10 
ing  much  more  than  they  had  been  accustomed  to  do.  "For 
who  knows,"  said  the  lady,  "what  may  happen,  and  whether 
we  may  be  able  to  keep  such  a  learned  tutor  long?". 

Frank  Esmond  said  he  for  his  part  did  not  want  to  learn 
any  more,  and  cousin  Harry  might  shut  up  his  book  when-  15 
ever  he  liked,  if  he  would  come  out  a-fishing;  and  little 
Beatrix  declared  she  would  send  for  Tom  Tusher,  and  he 
would  be  glad  enough  to  come  to  Castlewood,  if  Harry 
chose  to  go  away. 

At  last  comes  a  messenger  from  Winchester  one  day,  20 
bearer  of  a  letter,  with  a  great  black  seal,  from  the  Dean  there, 
to  say  that  his  sister  was  dead,  and  had  left  her  fortune  of 
£2000  among  her  six  nieces,  the  Dean's  daughters;  and 
many  a  time  since  has  Harry  Esmond  recalled  the  flushed 
face  and  eager  look  wherewith,  after  this  intelligence,  his  25 
kind  lady  regarded  him.  She  did  not  j)retend  to  any  grief 
about  the  deceased  relative,  from  whom  she  and  her  family 
had  been  many  years  parted. 

When  my  lord  heard  of  the  news,  he  also  did  not  make 
any  very  long  face.  "The  money  will  come  very  handy  30 
to  furnish  the  musick-room  and  the  cellar,  which  is  getting 
low,  and  buy  your  ladyship  a  coach  and  a  couple  of  horses 
that  will  do  indifferent  to  ride  or  for  the  coach.  And  Bea- 
trix, you  shall  have  a  spinnet° ;  and  Frank,  you  shall  have 
a  little  horse  from  Hexton  Fair ;  and  Harry,  you  shall  have  35 
five  pound  to  buy  some  books,"  said  my  lord,  who  was 
generous  with  his  own,  and,  indeed,  with  other  folks'  money. 
"  I  wish  your  aunt  would  die  once  a  year,  Rachel ;  we  could 
spend  your  money,  and  all  your  sisters',  too.  " 


98  HENRY   ESMOND 

"I  have  but  one  aunt  —  and  —  and  I  have  another  use 

for  the  money,  my  lord,"  says  my   lady,  turning    very  red. 

"Another  use,  my  dear;    and  what  do  j^ou  know  about 

money?"   cries   my   lord.     "And   what   the   devil   is   there 

5  that  i  don't  give  5rou  which  you  want?" 

"I  intend  to  give  this  money  —  can't  you  fancy  how,  my 
lord?" 

My  lord  swore  one  of  his  large  oaths  that  he  did  not  know 
in  the  least  what  she  meant, 
lo  "I  intend  it  for  Harry  Esmond  to  go  to  college.  —  Cousin 
Harry,"  says  my  lady,  "you  mustn't  stay  longer  in  this 
dull  place,  but  make  a  name  to  yourself,  and  for  us  too, 
Harry." 

"D n  it,   Harry's  well  enough  here,"  says  my  lord, 

15  for  a  moment  looking  rather  sulky. 

"Is  Harry  going  away?  You  don't  mean  to  say  you  will 
go  away?"  cry  out  Frank  and  Beatrix  at  one  breath. 

.  "  But  he  will  come  back ;  and  this  will  always  be  his  home," 
cries  my  lady,  with  blue  eyes  looking  a  celestial  kindness : 
20  "and  his  scholars  will  always  love  him;   won't  they?" 

"By  G — d,  Bachel,  you're  a  good  woman !"  says  my  lord, 
seizing  my  lady's  hand,  at  which  she  blushed  very  much, 
and  shrank  back,  putting  her  children  before  her.  "  I  wish 
you  joy,  m)^  kinsman,"  he  continued,  giving  Harry  Esmond 
25  a  hearty  slap  on  the  shoulder.  "I  won't  baulk  your  luck. 
Go  to  Cambridge,  boy;  and  when  Tusher  dies  you  shall 
have  the  living  here,  if  you  are  not  better  provided  by  that 
time.  We'll  furnish  the  dining-room  and  buy  the  horses 
another  year.  I'll  give  thee  a  nag°  out  of  the  stable :  take 
30  any  one  except  my  hack  and  the  bay  gelding  and  the  coach- 
horses  ;    and  Ciod  speed  thee,  my  boy ! " 

"Have  the  sorrel,  Harry;    'tis  a  good  one.     Father  says 

'tis  the  best  in  the  stable,"  says  little  Frank,  claiJ{)ing  his 

hands,  and  jumping  up.     "Let's  come  and  see  him  in  the 

35  stable."     And  the  other,  in  his  delight  and  eagerness,  was  for 

leaving  the  room  that  instant  to  arrange  about  his  journey. 

The  Lady  Castlewood  looked  after  him  with  sad  penetrating 
glances.  "He  wishes  to  be  gone  already,  my  lord,"  said 
she  to  her  husband. 


HENRY   ESMOND  99 

The  young  man  hung  back  abashed.     "Indeed,  I  would 
stay  for  ever,  if  your  ladyship  bade  me,"  he  said. 

"And  thou  wouldst  be  a  fool  for  thy  pains,   kinsman," 
said  my  lord.     "  Tut,   tut,   man !     Go   and   see  the   world. 
Sow  thy  wild  oats;   and  take  the  best  luck  that  Fate  sends  5 
thee.     I  wish  I  were  a. boy  again,  that  I  might  go  to  college, 
and  taste  the  Trumpington°  ale." 

"Ours,  indeed,  is  but  a  dull  home,"  cries  my  lady,  with  a 
Httle  of  sadness  and,  may  be,  of  satire,  in  her  voice:  "an 
old  glum  house,  half  ruined,  and  the  rest  only  half  furnished ;  10 
a  woman  and  two  children  are  but  poor  company  for  men 
that  are  accustomed  to  better.  We  are  only  fit  to  be  your 
worship's  handmaids,  and  your  pleasures  must  of  necessity 
lie  elsewhere  than  at  home." 

"Curse  me,  Rachel,  if  I  know  now  whether  thou  art  in  15 
earnest  or  not,"  said  my  lord. 

"In  earnest,  my  lord!"  says  she,  still  clinging  by  one  of 
her  children.  "Is  there  much  subject  here  for  joke?" 
And  she  made  him  a  grand  -curtsey,  and,  giving  a  stately 
look  to  Harry  Esmond,  which  seemed  to  say,  "Remember;  20 
you  understand  me,  though  he  does  not,"  she  left  the  room 
with  her  children. 

"Since  she  found  out  that  confounded  Hexton  business," 
my  lord  said  —  "  and  be  hanged  to  them  that  told  her  !  —  she 
has  not  been  the  same  woman.  She  who  used  to  be  as  25 
humble  as  a  milkmaid,  is  as  proud  as  a  princess,"  says  my 
lord.  "Take  my  counsel,  Harry  Esmond,  and  keep  clear 
of  women.  Since  I  have  had  anything  to  do  with  the  jades, 
%ey  have  given  me  nothing  but  disgust.  I  had  a  wife  at 
Tangier,  with  whom,  as  she  couldn't  speak  a  word  of  my  30 
language,  you'd  have  thought  I  might  lead  a  quiet  hfe. 
But  she  tried  to  poison  me,  because  she  was  jealous  of  a  Jew 
girl.  There  was  your  aunt,  for  aunt  she  is,  —  Aunt 
Jezebel,  a  pretty  life  your  father  led  wdth  her,  and  here's 
my  lady.  When  I  saw  her  on  a  pillion  riding  behind  the  35 
Dean  her  father,  she  looked  and  was  such  a  baby,  that  a 
sixpenny  doll  might  have  pleased  her.  And  now  you  see  what 
she  is, — hands  off,  highty-tighty,°  high  and  mighty,  an 
empress  couldn't  be  grander.     Pass  us  the  tankard,  Harry, 


100  HENRY   ESMOND 

my  boy.     A  mug  of  beer  and  a  toast  at  morn,  says  m^ 
host.     A  toast  and  a  mug  of  beer  at  noon,  says  my  dear. 

D n  it,  Polly  loves  a  mug   of  ale,  too,  and   laced  with 

brandy,  by  Jove  ! "  ■  Indeed,  I  suppose  they  drank  it  together ; 
5  for  my  lord  was  often  thick  in  his  speech  at  midday  dinner; 
and  at  night  at  supper,  speechless  altogether. 

Harry  Esmond's  departure  resolved  upon,  it  seemed  as  if 
the  Lady  Castlewood,  too,  rejoiced  to  lose  him;  for  more 
than  once,  when  the  lad,  ashamed  perhaps  at  his  own  secret 

10  eagerness  to  go  away  (at  any  rate  stricken  with  sadness 
at  the  idea  of  leaving  those  from  whom  he  had  received 
so  many  proofs  of  love  and  kindness  inestimable),  tried 
to  express  to  his  mistress  his  sense  of  gratitude  to  her,  and 
his  sorrow  at  quitting  those  who  had  so  sheltered  and  tended 

15  a  nameless  and  houseless  orphan.  Lady  Castlewood  cut 
short  his  protests  of  love  and  his  lamentations,  and  would 
hear  of  no  grief,  but  only  look  forward  to  Harry's  fame  and 
prospects  in  life.  ''Our  little  legacy  will  keep  you  for  four 
years  like   a   gentleman.     Heaven's   Providence,   your  own 

20  genius,  industry,  honour,  must  do  the  rest  for  you.  Castle- 
wood will  always  be  a  home  for  you,  and  these  children, 
whom  you  have  taught  and  loved,  will  not  forget  to  love 
you.  And  Harry,"  said  she  (and  this  was  the  only  time 
when  she  spoke  with  a  tear  in  her  eye,  or  a  tremor  in  her 

25  voice),  "it  may  happen  in  the  course  of  nature  that  I  shall  be 
callecl  away  from  them  ;  and  their  father  —  and  —  and  they 
will  need  true  friends  and  protectors.  Promise  me  that 
you  will  be  true  to  them  —  as  —  as  I  think  I  have  been 
to  you  —  and  a  mother's  fond  prayer  and  blessing  go  with 

30  you." 

"80  help  me  God,  madam,  I  will,"  said  Harry  Esmond, 
falling  on  his  knees,  and  kissing  the  hand  of  his  dearest 
mistress.  "If  you  will  have  me  stay  now,  I  will.  What 
matters  whether  or  no  I  make  my  way  in  life,  or  whether 

35  a  poor  bastard  dies  as  unknown  as  he  is  now?  'Tis  enough 
that  I  hjivc  your  love  and  kindness  surely;  and  to  make 
you  haj^py  is  duty  enough  for  me." 

"Hai)py!"  says  she;  "but  indeed  I  ought  to  be,  with 
my  children,  and " 


HENRY   ESMOND  101 

''Not  happy!''  cried  Esmond  (for  he  knew  what  her  hfe 
was,  though  he  and  his  mistress  never  spoke  a  word  concern- 
ing it).  "If  not  happiness,  it  may  be  ease.  Let  me  stay 
and  work  for  you  —  let  me  stay  and  be  your  servant,'' 

"Indeed,  you  are  best  away,"  said  my  lady,  laughing,  as  5 
she  put  her  hand  on  the  boy's  head  for  a  moment.  "You 
shall  stay  in  no  such  dull  place.  You  shall  go  to  college 
and  distinguish  yourself  as  becomes  your  name.  That 
is  how  you  shall  please  me  best ;  and  —  and  if  my  children 
want  you,  or  I  want  you,  you  shall  come  to  us ;  and  I  know  10 
we  may  count  on  you." 

"May  Heaven  forsake  me  if  you  may  not,"  Harry  said, 
getting  up  from  his  knee. 

"And  my  knight  longs  for  a  dragon°  this  instant  that  he 
may  fight,"  said  m.y  lady,  laughing:  which  speech  made  15 
Harry  Esmond  start,  and  turn  red;  for  indeed  the  very 
thought  was  in  his  mind  that  he  would  like  that  some  chance 
should  immediately  happen  whereby  he  might  show  his 
devotion.  And  it  pleased  him  to  think  that  his  lady  had 
called  him  "her  knight,"  and  often  and  often  he  recalled  this  20 
to  his  mind,  and  prayed  that  he  might  be  her  true  knight, 
too. 

My  lady's  bedchamber  window  looked  out  over  the  country, 
and  you  could  see  from  it  the  purple  hills  beyond  Castle- 
wood  village,  the  green  common  betwixt  that  and  the  Hall,  25 
and  the  old  bridge  which  crossed  over  the  river.  When 
Harry  Esmond  went  away  for  Cambridge,  little  Frank  ran 
alongside  his  horse  as  far  as  the  bridge,  and  there  Harry 
stopped  for  a  moment,  and  looked  back  at  the  house  where 
the  best  part  of  his  life  had  been  passed.  It  lay  before  him  30 
with  its  grey  familiar  towers,  a  pinnacle  or  two  shining  in 
the  sun,  the  buttresses  and  terrace-walls  casting  great  blue 
shades  on  the  grass.  And  Harry  remembered  all  his  life 
after  how  he  saw  his  mistress  at  the  window  looking  out  on 
him,  in  a  white  robe,  the  little  Beatrix's  chestnut  curls  resting  ^j 
at  her  mother's  side.  Both  waved  a  farewell  to  him,  and 
httle  Frank  sobbed  to  leave  him.  Yes,  he  would  be  his 
lady's  true  knight,  he  vowed  in  his  heart ;  he  wa^•ed  her  an 
adieu  with  his  hat.     The  village  people  had  good-bye  to  say 


102  HENRY   ESMOND 

to  him  too.  All  knew  that  iMaster  Harry  was  going  to  college, 
and  most  of  them  had  a  kind  word  and  a  look  of  farewell. 
I  do  not  stop  to  say  what  adventures  he  began  to  imagine 
or  what  career  to  devise  for  himself  before  he  had  ridden 
5  three  miles  from  home.  He  had  not  read  Monsieur  Galland's 
ingenious  Arabian  tales°  as  yet;  but  be  sure  that  there  are 
other  folks  who  build  castles  in  the  air,  and  have  fine  hopes, 
and  kick  them  down  too,  besides  honest  Alnaschar.° 


CHAPTER    X 

I   GO    TO    CAMBRIDGE,    AND    DO    BUT   LITTLE    GOOD   THERE 

My  lord,  who  said  he  should  like  to  revisit  the  old  haunts 

10  of  his  youth,  kindly  accompanied  PTarry  Esmond  in  his 
first  journey  to  Cambridge.  Their  road  lay  through  London, 
where  Iny  Lord  Viscount  would  also  have  Harry  stay  a  few 
days  to  show  him  the  pleasures  of  the  town,  before  he  entered 
upon  his  university  studies,  and  whilst  here  Harry's  patron 

15  conducted  the  young  man  to  my  Lady  Dowager's  house 
at  Chelsea  near  London  :  the  kind  lady  at  Castlewood  ha^dng 
specially  ordered  that  the  young  gentleman  and  the  old 
should  pay  a  respectful  visit  in  that  quarter. 

Her  ladyship  the  Viscountess  Dowager  occupied  a  hand- 

20  some  new  house  in  Chelsea,  with  a  garden  behind  it,  and 
facing  the  river,  always  a  bright  and  animated  sight  with 
its  swarms  of  sailors,  barges,  and  wherries.  Harry  laughed 
at  recognising  in  the  parlour  the  well-remembered  old  piece 
of  Sir  Peter   Lely,   wherein  his  father's  widow  was  repre- 

25  sented  as  a  virgin  huntress  armed  with  a  gilt  bow-and-arrow, 
and  encumbered  only  with  that  small  quantity  of  drapery 
which  it  would  seem  the  virgins  in  King  Charles's  day  were 
accustomed  to  wear. 

My  Lady  Dowager  had  left  off  this  peculiar  habit  of  hun- 

30  tress  when  she  married.  But  though  she  was  now  considerably 
past  sixty  years  of  age,  I  believe  she  thought  that  airy  nymph 
of  the  ))icture  could  still  be  easily  recognised  in  the  venerable 
personage  who  gave  an  audience  to  Harry  and  his  patron. 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  103 

She  received  the  young  man  with  even  more  favour  than 
she  showed  to  the  elder,  for  she  chose  to  carry  on  the  con- 
versation in  French,  in  which  my  Lord  Castle  wood  was  no 
great  proficient,  and  expressed  her  satisfaction  at  finding 
that  Mr,  Esmond  could  speak  fluently  in  that  language.  5 
"Twas  the  only  one  fit  for  polite  conversation,^' she  con- 
descended to  say,  "and  suitable  to  persons  of  high  breeding." 

My  lord  laughed  afterwards,  as  the  gentlemen  went  away, 
at  his  kinswoman's  behaviour.     He  said  he  remembered  the 
time  when  she  could  speak  English  fast  enough,  and  joked  10 
in  his  jolly  way  at  the  loss  he  had  had  of  such  a  lovely  wife 
as  that. 

My  Lady  Viscountess  deigned  to  ask  his  lordship  news 
of  his  wife  and  children;    she  had  heard  that  Lady  Castle- 
wood  had  had  the  small-pox;    she  hoped  she  was  not  so  15 
very  much  disfigured  as  people  said. 

At  this  remark  about  his  wife's  malady,  my  Lord  Viscount 
winced  and  turned  red,  but  the  Dowager  in  speaking  of 
the  disfigurement  of  the  young  lady,  turned  to  her  looking- 
glass  and  examined  her  old  wrinkled  countenance  in  it  20 
with  such  a  grin  of  satisfaction,  that  it  was  all  her  guests 
could  do  to  refrain  from  laughing  in  her  ancient  face. 

She  asked  Harry  what  his  profession  was  to  be;   and  my 
lord  saying  that  the  lad  was  to  take  orders,  and  have  the 
living  of  Castlewood  when  old   Dr.  Tusher  vacated  it,   she  25 
did  not  seem  to  show  any  particular  anger  at    the   notion 
of  Harry's  becoming  a  Church  of  England  clergyman,  nay, 
was  rather  glad  than  otherwise,  that  the  youth  should  be 
so  provided  for.     She  bade  Mr.  Esmond  not  to  forget  to 
pay  her  a  visit,  whenever  he  passed  through  London,  and  30 
carried  her  graciousness  so  far  as  to  send  a  purse  with  twenty 
guineas  for  him,  to  the  tavern  at  which  my  lord  put  up  (the 
Greyhound,  in  Charing  Cross°) ;  and,  along  with  this  welcome 
gift  for  her  kinsman,  she  sent  a  little  doll  for  a  present  to  my 
lord's  little  daughter  Beatrix,  who  was  growing  beyond  the  3; 
age  of  dolls  by  this  time,  and  was  as  tall  almost  as  her  vener- 
able relative. 

After  seeing  the  town,  and  going  to  the  plays,  my  Lord 
Castlewood  and  Esmond  rode  together  to  Cambridge,  spend- 


104  HENRY   ESMOND 

ing  two  pleasant  days  upon  the  journey.  Those  rapid  ne\H 
coaches°  were  not  estabhshed  as  yet,  that  performed  the 
whole  journey  between  London  and  the  University  in  a 
single  day ;  however,  the  road  was  pleasant  and  short  enough 
s  to  Harry  Esmond,  and  he  always  gratefully  remembered 
that  happy  holiday,  whioh  his  kind  patron  gave  him. 

Mr.  Esmond  was  entered  a  pensioner°  of  Trinity  College 
in  Cambridge,  to  which  famous  college  my  lord  had  also  in 
his    youth    belonged.     Dr.    IMontague    was    master    at    this 

10  time,  and  received  my  Lord  Viscount  with  great  politeness ; 
so  did  Mr.  Bridge,  who  was  appointed  to  be  Harry's  tutor. 
Tom  Tusher,  who  was  of  Emmanuel  College,  °  and  was  by 
this  time  a  junior  soph,  came  to  wait  upon  my  lord,  and  to 
take  Harry  under  his  protection ;    and  comfortable  rooms 

15  being  provided  for  him  in  the  great  court  close  by  the  gate, 
and  near  to  the  famous  Mr.  Newton's°  lodgings,  Harry's 
patron  took  leave  of  him  with  many  kind  words  and  bless- 
ings, and  an  admonition  to  him  to  behave  better  at  the 
University  than  my  lord  himself  had  ever  done. 

20  'Tis  needless  in  these  memoirs  to  go  at  any  length  into 
the  particulars  of  Harry  Esmond's  college  career.  It  was  like 
that  of  a  hundred  young  gentlemen  of  that  day.  But  he 
had  the  ill-fortune  to  be  older  by  a  couple  of  years  than 
most  of  his  fellow-students,   and  by  his  previous  solitary 

25  mode  of  bringing  up,  the  circumstances  of  his  life,  and  the 
peculiar  thoughtfulness  and  melancholy  that  had  naturally 
engendered,  he  was,  in  a  great  measure,  cut  off  from  the 
society  of  comrades  who  were  much  younger  and  higher 
spirited  than  he.     His  tutor,  who  had  bowed  down  to  the 

30  ground,  as  he  walked  my  lord  over  the  college  grass-plats, 
changed  his  behaviour  as  soon  as  the  nobleman's  back  was 
turned,  and  was  —  at  least,  Harry  thought  so  —  harsh  and 
overbearing.  When  the  lads  used  to  assemble  in  their 
greges°  in  hall,  Harry  found  himself  alone  in  the  midst  of 

35  that  little  flock  of  boys;  they  raised  a  great  laugh  at  him 
when  he  was  set  on  to  read  Latin,  which  he  did  with  the 
foreign  pronunciation  taught  to  him  by  his  old  master,  the 
Jesuit,  than  which  he  knew  no  other.  \\r.  Bridge,  the  tutor, 
made  him  the  object  of  clumsy  jokes,  in  which  he  was  fond 


HENRY  ESMOND  105 

of  indulging.  The  young  man's  spirit  was  chafed,  and  his 
vanity  mortified ;  and  he  found  himself,  for  some  time,  as 
lonely  in  this  place  as  ever  he  had  been  at  Castle  wood, 
whither  he  longed  to  return.  His  birth  was  a  source  of 
shame  to  him,  and  he  fancied  a  hundred  slights  and  sneers  5 
from  young  and  old,  who,  no  doubt,  had  treated  him  better 
had  he  met  them  himself  more  frankly.  And  as  he  looks 
back,  in  calmer  days,  upon  this  period  of  his  life,  which 
he  thought  so  unhappy,  he  can  see  that  his  own  pride  and 
vanity  caused  no  small  part  of  the  mortifications  which  10 
he  attributed  to  others'  illwill.  The  world  deals  good- 
naturedly  with  good-natured  people,  and  I  never  knew  a 
sulky  misanthropist  who  quarrelled  with  it,  but  it  was  he, 
and  not  it,  that  was  in  the  wrong.  Tom  Tusher  gave  Harry 
plenty  of  good  advice  on  this  subject,  for  Tom  had  both  15 
good  sense  and  good  humour;  but  Mr.  Harry  chose  to  treat 
his  senior  with  a  great  deal  of  superfluous  disdain  and  absurd 
scorn,  and  would  by  no  means  part  from  his  darling  injuries, 
in  which,  very  likely,  no  man  believed  but  himself.  As  for 
honest  Doctor  Bridge,  the  tutor  found,  after  a  few  trials  20 
of  wit  with  the  pupil,  that  the  younger  man  was  an  ugly 
subject  for  wit,  and  that  the  laugh  was  often  turned  against 
him.  This  did  not  make  tutor  and  pupil  any  better  friends; 
but  had,  so  far,  an  advantage  for  Esmond,  that  Mr.  Bridge 
was  induced  to  leave  him  alone ;  and  so  long  as  he  kept  his  25 
chapels,°and  did  the  college  exercises  required  of  him,  Bridge 
was  content  not  to  see  Harry's  glum  face  in  his  class,  and 
to  leave  him  to  read  and  sulk  for  himself  in  his  own  chamber. 
A  poem  or  two  in  Latin  and  English,  which  were  pronounced 
to  have  some  merit,  and  a  Latin  oration  (for  Mr.  Esmond  30 
could  write  that  language  better  than  pronounce  it),  got 
him  a  little  reputation  both  with  the  authorities  of  the 
University  and  amongst  the  young  men,  with  whom  he 
began  to  pass  for  more  than  he  was  worth.  A  few  vic- 
tories over  their  common  enemy,  Mr.  Bridge,  made  them  35 
incline  towards  him,  and  look  upon  him  as  the  champion 
of  their  order  against  the  seniors.  Such  of  the  lads  as  he 
took  into  his  confidence  found  him  not  so  glooQiy  and  haughty 
as  his  appearance  led  them  to  believe ;   and  Don  Dismallo,** 


106  HENRY   ESMOND 

as  he  was  called,  became  presently  a  person  of  some  little 
importance  in  his  college,  and  was,  as  he  believes,  set  down 
by  the  seniors  there  as  rather  a  dangerous  character. 

Don  Dismallo  was  a  staunch  young  Jacobite,  °  like  the 
5  rest  of  his  family ;  gave  himself  many  absurd  airs  of  loyalty ; 
used  to  invite  young  friends  to  Burgundy, °  and  give  the 
King's  health  on  King  James's  birthday  ;  wore  black 
on  the  da}^  of  his  abdication ;  fasted  on  the  anniversary  of 
King  William's  coronation;  and  performed  a  thousand  ab- 

10  surd  anticks,  of  which  he  smiles  now  to  think. 

These  follies  caused  many  remonstrances  on  Tom  Tusher's 
part,  who  was  always  a  friend  of  the  powers  that  be,  as 
Esmond  was  always  in  opposition  to  them.  Tom  was  a 
Whig,   while  Esmond  was  a  Tory.°     Tom  never  missed  a 

15  lecture,  and  capped  the  proctor°  with  the  profoundest  of 
bows.  No  wonder  he  sighed  over  Harry's  insubordinate 
courses,  and  was  angry  when  the  others  laughed  at  him. 
But  that  Harry  was  known  to  have  my  Lord  Viscount's 
protection,   Tom   no   doubt  would   have   broken   with  him 

20  altogether.  But  honest  Tom  never  gave  up  a  comrade 
as  long  as  he  was  the  friend  of  a  great  man.  This  was  not 
out  of  scheming  on  Tom's  part,  but  a  natural  inclination 
towards  the  great.  'Twas  no  hypocrisy  in  him  to  flatter, 
but  the  bent  of  his  mind,  which  was  always  perfectly  good- 

25  humoured,  obliging,  and  servile. 

Harry  had  very  liberal  allowances,  for  his  dear  mistress 
of  Castlewood  not  only  regularly  supplied  him,  but  the 
Dowager  at  Chelsea  made  her  donation  annual,  and  received 
Esmond  at  her  house  near  London  every  Christmas;    but 

30  in  spite  of  these  benefactions,  Esmond  was  constantly  poor ; 
whilst  'twas  a  wonder  with  how  small  a  stipend  from  his 
father  Tom  Tushcr  contrived  to  make  a  good  figure.  'Tis 
true  that  Harry  both  spent,  gave,  and  lent  his  money  very 
freely,  which  Thomas  never  did.     I  think  he  was  like  the 

35  famous  JJuke  of  Marlborough  in  this  instance,  who  getting  a 
present  of  fifty  pieces,  when  a  young  man,  from  some  foolish 
woman,  who  fell  in  kn'o  with  his  good  looks,  showed  the 
money  to  (Jadogan  in  a  draw(^r  scores  of  years  after,  where 
it  had  lain  ever  since  ho  had  sold  his  beardless  honour  to 


HENRY  ESMOND  '  107 

procure  it.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  Tom  ever  let  out 
his  good  looks  so  profitably,  for  nature  had  not  endowed 
him  with  any  particular  charms  of  person,  and  he  ever  was 
a  pattern  of  moral  behaviour,  losing  no  opportunity  of  giving 
the  very  best  advice  to  his  younger  comrade ;  with  which  5 
article,  to  do  him  justice,  he  parted  very  freely.  Not  but 
that  he  was  a  merry  fellow,  too,  in  his  vray ;  he  loved  a  joke, 
if  by  good  fortune  he  understood  it,  and  took  his  share 
generously  of  a  bottle  if  another  paid  for  it,  and  especially 
if  there  was  a  young  lord  in  company  to  drink  it.  In  these  10 
cases  there  was  not  a  harder  drinker  in  the  University  than 
i\Ir.  Tusher  could  be-;  and  it  was  edifying  to  behold  him, 
fresh  shaved,  and  with  smug  face,  singing  out  "Amen!" 
at  early  chapel  in  the  morning.  In  his  reading,  poor  Harry 
permitted  himself  to  go  a-gadding  after  all  the  Nine  Muses, °  15 
and  so  very  likely  had  but  little  favour  from  any  one  of 
them ;  whereas  Tom  Tusher,  who  had  no  more  turn  for 
poetry  than  a  ploughboy,  nevertheless,  by  a  dogged  per- 
severance and  obsequiousness  in  courting  the  divine  Calliope, 
got  himself  a  prize,  and  some  credit  in  the  University,  and  20 
a  fellowship  at  his  college,  as  a  reward  for  his  scholarship. 
In  this  time  of  Mr.  Esmond's  life,  he  got  the  little  reading 
which  he  ever  could  boast  of,  and  passed  a  good  part  of  his 
days  greedily  devouring  all  the  books  on  which  he  could  lay 
hand.  In  this  desultory  way  the  works  of  most  of  the  English,  25 
French,  and  Italian  poets  came  under  his  eyes,  and  he  had 
a  smattering  of  the  Spanish  tongue  likewise,  besides  the 
ancient  languages,  of  which,  at  least  of  Latin,  he  was  a 
tolerable  master. 

Then,  about  midway  in  his  University  career,  he  fell  to  30 
reading  for  the  profession  to  which  worldly  prudence  rather 
than  inclination  called  him,  and  was  perfectly  bewildered 
in  theological  controversy.  In  the  course  of  his  reading 
(which  was  neither  pursued  with  that  seriousness  or  that 
devout  mind  which  such  a  study  recjuires),  the  youth  found  35 
himself,  at  the  end  of  one  month,  a  Papist,  and  was  about 
to  proclaim  his  faith;  the  next  month,  a  Protestant,  with 
Chillingworth ;  and  the  third,  a  sceptick,  with  Hobbes  and 
Bayle.°     Whereas    honest    Tom    Tusher    never    permitted 


108  *  HENRY   ESMOND 

his  mind  to  stray  out  of  thfe  prescribed  University  patl\ 
accepted  the  Thirty-nine  Articles°  with  all  his  heart,  and 
would  have  signed  and  sworn  to  other  nine-and-thirty  with 
entire  obedience.  Harry's  wilfulness  in  this  matter,  and 
5  disorderly  thoughts  and  conversation,  so  shocked  and 
afflicted  his  senior,  that  there  grew  up  a  coldness  and  estrange- 
ment between  them,  so  that  they  became  scarce  more  than 
mere  acquaintances  from  having  been  intimate  friends  when 
they  came  to  college  first.     Politicks  ran  high,  too,  at  the 

10  University ;  and  here,  also,  the  young  men  wore  at  variance. 
Tom  professed  himself,  albeit  a  high-churchman,  a  strong 
King  William's-man;  whereas  Harry  brought  his  family 
Tory  politicks  to  college  with  him,  to  which  he  must  acid  a 
dangerous    admiration    for    Oliver    Cromwell,    whose    side, 

15  or  King  James's  by  turns,  he  often  chose  to  take  in  the  dis- 
putes which  the  young  gentlemen  used  to  hold  in  each 
other's  rooms,  where  they  debated  on  the  state  of  the  nation, 
crowned  and  deposed  kings,  and  toasted  past  and  present 
heroes  or  beauties  in  flagons  of  college  ale. 

20  Thus  either  from  the  circumstances  of  his  birth,  or  the 
natural  melancholy  of  his  disposition,  Esmond  came  to  live 
very  much  by  himself  during  -his  stay  at  the  University, 
having  neither  ambition  enough  to  distinguish  himself  in  the 
college  career,  nor  caring  to  mingle  with  the  mere  i)leasures 

25  and  boyish  frolics  of  the  students,  who  were,  for  the  most  part, 
two  or  three  years  younger  than  he.  He  fancied  that  the 
gentlemen  of  the  common-room  of  his  college  slighted  him  en 
account  of  his  birth,  and  hence  kept  aloof  from  their  society. 
It  may  be  that  he  made  the  illwill,  which  he  imagined  came 

30  from  them,  by  his  own  behaviour,  which,  as  he  looks  back 
on  it  in  after-life,  he  now  sees  was  morose  and  haughty.  At 
any  rate,  he  was  as  tenderly  grateful  for  kindness,  as  he  was 
susceptible  of  slight  and  wrong;  and,  lonely  as  he  \vas  gen- 
erally, yet  had  one  or  two  very  warm  friendships  for  his  com- 

3S  panions  of  those  da3^s. 

One  of  these  was  a  queer  gentleman  that  resided  in  the 
University,  though  he  was  no  member  of  it,  and  was  the 
})rofessor  of  a  science,  scarce  recognised  in  the  common 
course   of   college   education.     This   was   a   French   refugee 


HENRY   ESMOND  109 

officer,  who  had  been  driven  out  of  his  native  country  at  the 
time  of  the  Protestant  persecutions  there,  and  who  came  to 
Cambridge,  where  he  taught  the  science  of  the  small-sword, 
and  set  up  a  saloon-of-arms.°  Though  he  declared  himself 
a  Protestant,  'twas  said  Mr.  Moreau  was  a  Jesuit  in  disguise;  5 
indeed  he  brought  very  strong  recommendations  to  the  Tory 
party,  which  was  pretty  strong  in  that  University,  and  very 
likely  was  one  of  the  many  agents  whom  King  James. had 
in  this  country.  Esmond  found  this  gentleman's  conversa- 
tion very  much  more  agreeable,  and  to  his  taste,  than  the  talk  lo 
of  the  college  divines  in  the  common-room ;  he  never  wearied 
of  Moreau's  stories  of  the  wars  of  Turenne  and  Conde,°  in 
which  he  had  borne  a  pari: ;  and  being  familiar  with  the  French 
tongue  from  his  youth,  and  in  a  place  where  but  few  spoke  it, 
his  company  became  very  agreeable  to  the  brave  old  professor  15 
of  arms,  whose  favorite  pupil  he  was,  and  who  made  Mr.  Es- 
mond a  very  tolerable  proficient  in  the  noble  science  of  escrime° 
At  the  next  term  Esmond  was  to  take  his  degree  of  Bachelor 
of  Arts,  and  afterwards,  in  proper  season,  to  assume  the  cas- 
sock and  bands  which  his  fond  mistress  would  have  him  20 
wear.  Tom  Tusher  himself  was  a  parson  and  a  fellow  of 
his  college  by  this  time ;  and  Harry  felt  that  he  would  very 
gladly  cede  his  right  to  the  hving  of  Castlewood  to  Tom,  and 
that  his  own  calling  was  in  no  way  the  pulpit.  But  as  he 
was  bound,  before  all  things  in  the  world,  to  his  dear  mistress  25 
at  home,  and  knew  that  a  refusal  on  his  part  would  grieve 
her,  he  determined  to  give  her  no  hint  of  his  umvillingness 
to  the  clerical  office ;  and  it  was  in  this  unsatisfactory  mood 
of  mind  that  he  went  to  spend  the  last  vacation  he  should 
have  at  Castlewood  before  he  took  orders.  3° 


CHAPTER   XI 

I    COME    HOME    FOR    A    HOLIDAY    TO    CASTLEW^OOD,    AND    FIND 
A   SKELETON    IN    THE    HOUSE 

At  his  third  long  vacation,   Esmond  came  as  usual  to 
Castlewood,  always  feeUng  an  eager  thrill  of  pleasure  when  he 


110  HENRY   ESMOND 

found  himself  once  more  in  the  house  where  he  had  passed 
so  many  years,  and  beheld  the  kind  familiar  eyes  of  his  mis- 
tress looking  upon  him.  She  and  her  children  (out  of  whose 
company  she  scarce  ever  saw  him)  came  to  greet  him.  Mis? 
5  Beatrix  was  grown  so  tall  that  Harry  did  not  quite  know 
whether  he  might  kiss  her  or  no ;  and  she  blushed  and  held 
back  when  he  offered  that  salutation,  though  she  took  it, 
and  even  courted  it,  vdien  they  were  alone.  The  young  lord 
was  shooting  up  to  be  hke  his  gallant  father  in  look  though 

lo  with  his  mother's  kind  eyes :  the  lady  of  Castle  wood  herself 
seemed  grown,  too,  since  Harry  saw  her  —  in  her  look  more 
stately,  in  her  person  fuller,  in  her  face,  still  as  ever  most 
tender  and  friendly,  a  greater  air  of  command  and  decision 
than  had  appeared  in  that  guileless  sweet  countenance  which 

15  Harry  remembered  so  gratefully.  The  tone  of  her  voice  was 
so  much  deeper  and  sadder  when  she  spoke  and  welcomed  him, 
that  it  quite  startled  Esmond,  who  looked  up  at  her  surprised 
as  she  spoke,  when  she  withdrew  her  eyes  from  him ;  nor  did 
she  ever  look  at  him  afterwards  when  his  own  eyes  were 

2c  gazing  upon  her.  A  something  hinting  at  grief  and  secret, 
and  filling  his  mind  with  alarm  undefinable,  seemed  to  speak 
with  that  low  thrilling  voice  of  hers,  and  look  out  of  those 
clear  sad  eyes.  Her  greeting  to  Esmond  was  so  cold  that  it 
almost  pained  the  lad  (who  would  have  liked  to  fall  on  his 

25  knees,  and  kiss  the  skirt  of  her  robe,  so  fond  and  ardent  was 
his  respect  and  regard  for  her),  and  he  faltered  in  answering 
the  questions  which  she,  hesitating  on  her  side,  began  to  put 
to  him.  Was  he  happy  at  Cambridge?  Did  he  study  too 
hard  ?     She  hoped  not.     He  had  grown  very  tall,  and  looked 

30  very  well, 

"He  has  got  a  moustache !"  cries  out  Master  Esmond. 
"  Wliy  does  he  not  wear  a  ])crrufiue  like  my  Lord  Mohun  ?" 
asked  Miss  JJeatrix.     "My  lord  says  that  nobody  wears  their 
own  hair." 

35      "I  believe  you  will  have  to  occupy  your  old  chamber," 
says  my  lady.     "I  hope  the  housekeeper  has  got  it  ready." 
"  Why,  mamma,  you  have  been  tiiere  ten  times  these  three 
days  yourself,"  exclaims  Frank. 

"And  she  cut  some  flowers  which  you  planted  in  my  garden 


HENRY   ESMOND  111 

'*—  do  you  remember,  ever  so  many  years  ago  ?  —  when  I 
was  quite  a  little  girl/'  cries  out  Miss  Beatrix,  on  tiptoe. 
"And  mamma  put  them  in  your  Tvdndow.'' 

''I  remember  when  you  grew  well  after  you  were  ill  that 
you  used  to  like  roses/'  said  the  lady,  blushing  like  one  of  5 
them.     They  all  conducted  Harry  Esmond  to  his  chamber; 
the  children  running  before,  Harry  walking  by  his  mistress 
hand-in-hand. 

The  old  room  had  been  ornamented  and  beautified  not  a 
little  to  receive  him.     The  flowers  were  in  the  window  in  la 
a  china  vase ;   and  there  was  a  fine  new  counterpane  on  the 
bed,  which  chatterbox  Beatrix  said  mamma  had  made  too. 
A  lire  was  crackling  on  the  hearth,  although  it  was  June. 
My  lady  thought  the  room  wanted  warming;  everything  was 
done  to  make  him  happy  and  welcome:    "And  you  are  not  15 
to  be  a  page  any  longer,  but  a  gentleman  and  kinsman,  and 
to  walk  with  papa  and  mamma,"  said  the  children.     And 
as  soon  as  his  dear  mistress  and  children  had  left  him  to  him- 
self, it  was  with  a  heart  overflowing  with  love  and  gratefulness 
that  he  flung  himself  down  on  his  knees  by  the  side  of  the  2c 
little  bed,  and  asked  a  blessing  upon  those  who  were  so  kind 
to  him. 

The  children,  who  are  always  house  tell-tales,  soon  made 
him  acquainted  with  the  little  history  of  the  house  and 
family.  Papa  had  been  to  London  twice.  Papa  often  went  25 
away  now.  Papa  had  taken  Beatrix  to  Westlands,  where 
she  was  taller  than  Sir  George  Harper's  second  daughter, 
though  she  was  two  years  older.  Papa  had  taken  Beatrix 
and  Frank  both  to  Bellminster,  where  Frank  had  got  the 
better  of  Lord  Bellminster's  son  in  a  boxing-match  —  my  3a 
lord,  laughing,  told  Harry,  afterwards.  ]\Iany  gentlemen 
came  to  stop  with  papa,  and  papa  had  gotten  a  new  game 
from  London,  a  French  game,  called  a  billiard, °  —  that  the 
French  king  played  it  very  well :  and  the  Dowager  Lady 
Castlewood  had  sent  Miss  Beatrix  a  present ;  and  papa  had  35 
gotten  a  new  chaise,  with  two  little  horses,  which  he  drove 
himself,  beside  the  coach,  which  mamma  went  in ;  and 
Doctor  Tusher  was  a  cross  old  plague,  and  they  did  not  like 
to  learn  from  liini  at  all;   and  papa  did  not  care  about  them 


112  HENRY  ESMOND 

learning,  and  laughed  when  they  were  at  their  books;  but 
mamma  hked  them  to  learn,  and  taught  them :  and  I  don't 
think  papa  is  fond  of  mamma,  said  Miss  Beatrix,  with  her 
great  eyes.  She  had  come  quite  close  up  to  Harry  Esmond  by 
the  time  this  prattle  took  place,  and  was  on  his  knee,  and 
had  examined  all  the  points  of  his  dress,  and  all  the  good 
or  bad  features  of  his  homely  face. 

"You  shouldn't  say  that  papa  is  not  fond  of  mamma," 
said  the  boy,  at  this  confession.     "Mamma  never  said  so; 

lo  and  mamma  forbade  you  to  say  it.  Miss  Beatrix." 

Twas  this,  no  doubt,  that  accounted  for  the  sadness  in 
Lady  Castle  wood's  eyes,  and  the  plaintive  vibrations  of  her 
voice.  Who°  does  not  know  of  eyes,  lighted  by  love  once, 
where  the  flame  shines  no  more  ?  —  of  lamps  extinguished, 

15  once  properly  trimmed  and  tended?  Every  man  has  such 
in  his  house.  Such  mementos  make  our  splendidest  chambers 
look  blank  and  sad;  such  faces  seen  in  a  day  cast  a  gloom 
upon  our  sunshine.  So  oaths  mutually  sworn,  and  invoca- 
tions of  Heaven,  and  priestly  ceremonies,  and  fond  belief, 

20  and  love,  so  fond  and  faithful,  that  it  never  doubted  but  that 
it  should  live  for  ever,  are  all  of  no  avail  towards  making  love 
eternal :  it  dies,  in  spite  of  the  banns  and  the  priest ;  and  I 
have  often  thought  there  should  be  a  visitation  of  the  sick 
for  it;   and  a  funeral  service,  and  an  extreme  unction, °  and 

25  an  ahi  in  pace°  It  has  its  course  like  all  mortal  things  —  its 
beginning,  progress,  and  decay.  It  buds,  and  it  blooms  out 
into  sunshine,  and  it  withers  and  ends.  Strephon  and  Chloe° 
languish  apart:  join  in  a  rapture:  and  presently  you  hear 
that  Chloe  is  crying,   and  Strephon  has  broken  his  crook 

30  across  her  back.  Can  you  mend  it  so  as  to  show  no  marks  of 
rupture?  Not  all  the  priests  of  Hymen, °  not  all  the  incan- 
tations to  tlie  gods  can  make  it  whole  ! 

Waking  uji  from  dreams,  books,  and  visions  of  college 
honours,  in  whicli,  for  two  years,  Harry  Esmond  had  been 

35  immers(Ml,  he  foimd  himself,  instantly,  on  his  return  home, 
in  the  midst  of  this  actual  tragedy  of  life,  which  absorbed 
and  interested  him,  more  than  all  his  tutor  had  tauglit  him. 
The  ])(M-sons  whom  he  loved  best  in  the  world,  and  to  whom 
he  owed  most,  were  li\'ing  unhappily  together.     The  gentlest 


HENRY    ESMOND  113 

and  kindest  of  women  was  suffering  ill-usage  and  shedding 
tears  in  secret :  the  man  who  made  her  wretched  by  neglect, 
if  not  by  violence,  was  Harry's  benefactor  and  patron.  In 
houses  where,  in  place  of  that  sacred,  inmost  flame  of  love, 
there  is  discord  at  the  centre,  the  whole  household  becomes  5 
hypocritical,  and  each  lies  to  his  neighbour.  The  husband  (or 
it  may  be  the  wife)  lies  when  the  visitor  comes  in,  and  wears 
a  grin  of  reconciliation  or  politeness  before  him.  The  wife 
lies  (indeed,  her  business  is  to  do  that,  and  to  smile,  however 
much  she  is  beaten),  swallows  her  tears,  and  lies  to  her  lord  lo 
and  master;  lies  in  bidding  little  Jackey  respect  de^r  papa; 
lies  in  assuring  grandpapa  that  she  is  perfectly  happy.  The 
servants  lie,  wearing  grave  faces  behind  their  master's  chair, 
and  pretending  to  be  unconscious  of  the  fighting;  and  so, 
from  morning  till  bedtime,  life  is  passed  in  falsehood.  And  15 
wiseacres  call  this  a  proper  regard  of  morals,  and  point  out 
Baucis  and  Philemon°  as  examples  of  a  good  life. 

If  my  lady  did  not  speak  of  her  griefs  to  Harry  Esmond, 
my  lord  w^as  by  no  means  reserved  when  in  his  cups,  and 
spoke  his  mind  very  freely,   bidding  Harry,   in  his  coarse  20 
way,  and  with  his  blunt  language,  beware  of  all  women,  as 
cheats,   jades,   jilts,    and   using   other   unmistakable   mono- 
syllables in  speaking  of  them.     Indeed,    'twas  the  fashion 
of  the  day  as  I  must  own;  and  there's  not  a  writer  of  my 
time  of  any  note,  with  the  exception  of  poor  Dick  Steele,  25 
that  does  not  speak  of  a  woman  as  of  a  slave,  and  scorn  and 
use  her  as  such.     Mr.   Pope,   I\rr.   Congreve,   Mr.   Addison, 
Mr.  Gay,°  every  one  of  'em,  sing  in  this  key;   each  according 
to  his  nature  and  politeness ;    and  louder  and  fouler  than  all 
in  abuse  is   Dr.  Swift,  who   spoke   of   them  as   he  treated  30 
them,  worst  of  all. 

Much  of  the  quarrels  and  hatred  which  arise  between 
married  people  come  in  my  mind  from  the  husband's  rage 
and  revolt  at  discovering  that  his  slave  and  bedfellow, 
w^ho  is  to  minister  to  all  his  wishes,  and  is  church-sworn  to  35 
honour  and  obey  him  —  is  his  superior;  and  that  he,  and  not 
she,  ought  to  be  the  subordinate  of  the  twain ;  and  in  these 
controversies,  I  think,  lay  the  cause  of  my  lord's  anger 
against  his  lady.       When  he  left  her,   she  began  to  think 


114  HENRY  ESMOND 

for  herself,  and  her  thoughts  Avere  not  in  his  favour.  Aftei 
the  ilhiraination,  when  the  love-lamp  is  put  out  that  anon 
we  spoke  of,  and  by  the  common  daylight  you  look  at  the 
picture,  what  a  daub  it  looks  !  what  a  clumsy  effigy  !  How 
5  many  men  and  wives  come  to  this  knowledge,  think  you? 
And  if  it  be  painful  to  a  woman  to  find  herself  mated  for 
life  to  a  boor,  and  ordered  to  love  and  honour  a  dullard: 
it  is  worse  still  for  the  man  himself  perhaps  whenever  in 
his  dim  comprehension  the  idea  dawns  that  his  slave  and 

10  drudge  yonder  is,  in  truth,  his  superior;  that  the  woman 
who  does  his  bidding,  and  submits  to  his  humour,  should 
be  his  lord;  that  she  can  think  a  thousand  things  beyond 
the  power  of  his  muddled  brains;  and  that  in  yonder  head, 
on  the  pillow  opposite  to  him,  he  a  thousand  feelings,  myster- 

15  ies  of  thought,  latent  scorns  and  rebellions,  whereof  he  only 
dimly  perceives  the  existence  as  they  look  out  furtively 
from  her  eyes:  treasures  of  love  doomed  to  perish  without 
a  hand  to  gather  them ;  sweet  fancies  and  images  of  beauty 
that  would  grow  and  unfold  themselves  into  flower;    bright 

20  wit  that  would  shine  like  diamonds  could  it  be  brought 
into  the  sun :  and  the  tyrant  in  possession  crushes  the 
outbreak  of  all  these,  drives  them  back  like  slaves  into  the 
dungeon  and  darkness,  and  chafes  without  that  his  prisoner 
is  rebellious,  and  his  sworn  subject  undutiful  and  refractory. 

25  So  the  lamp  was  out  in  Castlewood  Hall,  and  the  lord  and 
lady  there  saw  each  other  as  they  were.  With  her  illness 
and  altered  beauty  my  lord's  fire  for  his  wife  disappeared; 
with  his  selfishness  and  faithlessness  her  foolish  fiction  of 
love   and   reverence   was   rent   away.     Love  ?  —  who   is   to 

30  love  what  is  base  and  unlovely  ?  Respect  ?  —  who  is  to 
res[)ect  what  is  gross  and  sensual?  Not  all  the  marriage 
oaths  sworn  before  all  the  parsons,  cardinals,  ministers, 
muftis,  and  rabbins°  in  the  world,  can  bind  to  that  monstrous 
allegiance.     This  couple  was  living  apart,  then:   tlie  woman 

35  hajjpy  to  be  allowed  to  love  and  tend  her  children  (who 
were  never  of  her  own  goodwill  away  from  her),  and  thank- 
ful to  have  saved  such  treasures  as  these  out  of  the  wreck 
in  which  the  better  part  of  her  heart  went  down. 

These  young  ones  had  had  no  instructors  save  their  mother, 


HENRY   ESMOND  115 

and  Doctor  Tusher  for  their  theology,  occasionally,  and  had 
made  more  progress  than  might  have  been  expected  under 
a  tutor  so  indulgent  and  fond  as  Lady  Castiewood.  Beatrix 
could  sing  and  dance  like  a  nymph.  Her  voice  was  her 
father's  delight  after  dinner.  She  ruled  over  the  house  5 
with  little  imperial  ways  which  her  parents  coaxed  and 
laughed  at.  She  had  long  learned  the  value  of  her  bright 
eyes,  and  tried  experiments  in  cociuetry,  in  corpore  vili° 
upon  rustics  and  country  squires,  until  she  should  prepare 
to  conquer  the  world  and  the  fashion.  She  put  on  a  new  lo 
ribbon  to  welcome  Harry  Esmond,  made  eyes  at  him,  and 
directed  her  young  smiles  at  him,  not  a  Httle  to  the  amuse- 
ment of  the  young  man,  and  the  joy  of  her  father,  who 
laughed  his  great  laugh,  and  encouraged  her  in  her  thousand 
anticks.  Lady  Castiewood  watched  the  child  gravely  and  15 
sadly :  the  little  one  was  pert  in  her  replies  to  her  mother : 
yet  eager  in  her  protestations  of  love  ancl  promises  of  amend- 
ment :  and  as  ready  to  cry  (after  a  little  quarrel  brought 
on  by  her  own  giddiness)  until  she  had  won  back  her  mam- 
ma's favour,  as  she  was  to  risk  the  kind  lady's  displeasure  20 
by  fresh  outbreaks  of  restless  vanity.  From  her  mother's 
sad  looks  she  fled  to  her  father's  chair  and  boozy  laughter. 
She  already  set  the  one  against  the  other :  ancl  the  little 
rogue  delighted  in  the  mischief  which  she  knew  how  to  make 
so  early.  25 

The  young  heir  of  Castiewood  was  spoiled  by  father  and 
mother  both.  He  took  their  caresses  as  men  do,  and  as  if 
they  were  his  right.  He  had  his  hawks  and  his  spaniel 
dog,  his  little  horse,  and  his  beagles.  He  had  learned  to 
ride  and  to  drink,  and  to  shoot  flying:  and  he  had  a  small  3° 
court,  the  sons  of  the  huntsman  and  woodman,  as  be- 
came the  heir-apparent,  taking  after  the  example  of  my 
lord  his  father.  If  he  had  a  headache,  his  mother  was 
as  much  frightened  as  if  the  plague  were  in  the  house : 
my  lord  laughed  and  jeered  in  his  abrupt  way  —  (indeed,  35 
'twas  on  the  day  after  New  Year's  Day,  and  an  excess  of 
mince-pie)  —  and    said    with    some    of    his    usual    oaths  — 

''  D n  it,  Harry  Esmond  —  you  see  how  my  lady  takes 

OQ  about    Frank's   megrim. °     She  used  to  be  soriy  about 


116  HENRY    ESMOND 

me,  my  boy  (pass  the  tankard,  Harry),  and  to  be  frighted  it. 
I   had^  a  headache  once.     She  don't    care  about  my  head 
now.     They're  hke  that  —  women  are  —  all  the  same,  Harry, 
all  jilts  in  their  hearts.     Stick  to  college  —  stick  to  punch 

5  and  buttery  ale:  and  never  see  a  woman  that's  hand- 
somer than  an  old  cinder-faced  bed-maker.  That's  my 
counsel." 

It  was  my  lord's  custom  to  fling  out  many  jokes  of  this 
nature,   in  presence  of  his  wife  and  children,  at  meals  — 

lo  clumsy  sarcasms  which  my  lady  turned  many  a  time,  or 
which,  sometimes,  she  affected  not  to  hear,  or  which  now 
and  again  would  hit  their  mark  and  make  the  poor  victim 
wnnce  (as  you  could  see  by  her  flushing  face  and  eyes  filling 
with  tears),   or  which  again  worked  her  up  to  anger  and 

15  retort  when,  in  answer  to  one  of  these  heav)^  bolts,  she 
would  flash  back  with  a  quivering  reply.  The  pair  were  not 
happy;  nor  indeed  was  it  happy  to  be  with  them.  Alas, 
that  youthful  love  and  truth  should  end  in  bitterness  and 
bankruptcy !     To    see    a   young   couple    loving   each    other 

20  is  no  wonder;  but  to  see  an  old  couple  loving  each  other  is 
the  best  sight  of  all.  Harry  Esmond  became  the  confidant 
of  one  and  the  other  —  that  is,  my  lord  told  the  lad  all  his 
griefs  and  wrongs  (which  were  indeed  of  Lord  Castle  wood 's° 
own  making),  and  Harry  divined  my  lady's;    his  affection 

25  leadiug  him  easily  to  penetrate  the  hypocrisy  under  which 
Lady  Castbwood  generally  chose  to  go  disguised,  and  to 
see  her  heart  aching  whilst  her  face  wore  a  smile.  'Tis  a 
hard  task  for  women  in  life,  that  mask  which  the  world  bids 
them  wear.     But  there  is  no  greater  crime  than  for  a  woman, 

30  who  is  ill-used  and  unhappy,  to  show  that  she  is  so.  The 
world  is  (juite  relentless  about  bidding  her  to  keep  a  cheer- 
ful face;  and  our  women,  like  the  Malabar  wives,°  are 
forced  to  go  smiling  and  painted  to  sacrifice  themselves 
with  their  husbands;    their  relations  being  the  most  eager 

35  to  push  them  on  to  their  duty,  and,  under  their  shouts  and 
api)lauses,  to  smother  and  hush  their  cries  of  pain. 

So,  into  the  sad  secret  of  his  patron's  household,  Harry 
Esmond  l)e('anie  initiated,  he  scarce  knew  how.  It  had 
passed  under  his  eyes  two  years  before,  when  he  could  not 


HENRY  ESMOND  111 

understand  it;  but  reading,  and  thought,  and  experience 
of  men,  had  oldened  him ;  and  one  of  the  deepest  sorrows 
of  a  Hfe  which  had  never,  in  truth,  been  very  happy,  came 
upon  him  now,  when  he  was  compelled  to  understand  and 
pity  a  grief  which  he  stood  quite  powerless  to  relieve.  5 

It  hath  been  said  my  lord  would  never  take  the  oath  of 
allegiance,  nor  his  seat  as  a  peer  of  the  kingdom  of  Ireland, 
where,  indeed,  he  had  but  a  nominal  estate ;  and  refused  an 
English  peerage  which  King  William's  government  offered 
him  as  a  bribe  to  secure  his  loyalty.  lo 

He  might  have  accepted  this,  and  would  doubtless,  but 
for  the  earnest  remonstrances  of  his  wife  (who  ruled  her 
husband's  opinions  better  than  she  could  govern  his  conduct), 
and  who  being  a  simple-hearted  woman  with  but  one  rule 
of  faith  and  right,  never  thought  of  swerving  from  her  15 
fidelity  to  the  exiled  family,  or  of  recognising  any  other 
sovereign  but  King  James;  and  though  she  acquiesced  in 
the  doctrine  of  obedience  to  the  reigning  power,  no  tempta- 
tion, she  thought,  could  induce  her  to  acknowledge  the 
Prince  of  Orange  as  rightful  monarch,  nor  to  let  her  lord  20 
so  acknowledge  him.  So  my  Lord  Castle  wood  remained 
a  non-juror  all  his  life  nearly,  though  his  self-denial  caused 
him  many  a  pang,  and  left  him  sulky  and  out  of  humour. 

The  year  after  the  Revolution,  and  all  through  King 
William's  life,  'tis  known  there  were  constant  intrigues  for  25 
the  restoration  of  the  exiled  family ;  but  if  my  Lord  Castle- 
wood  took  any  share  of  these,  as  is  probable,  'twas  only 
for  a  short  time,  and  when  Harry  Esmond  was  too  young  to 
be  introduced  into  such  important  secrets. 

But  in  the  year  1695,  when  that  conspiracy  oi  Sir  John  30 
Fenwick,  Colonel  Lowick,  and  others,  was  set  on  foot,  for 
waylaying  King  William  as  he  came  from  Hampton  Court° 
to  London,  and  a  secret  plot  was  formed,  in  which  a  vast 
number  of  the  nobility  and  people  of  honour  were  engaged. 
Father  Holt  appeared  at  Castlewood,  and  brought  a  young  35 
friend  with  him,  a  gentleman  whom  'twas  easy  to  see  that 
both  my  lord  and  the  Father  treated  with  uncommon  defer- 
ence.    Harrv  Esmond  saw  this  gentleman,   and  knew  and 


118  HENRY   ESMOND 

recognised  him  in  after  life,  as  shall  be  shown  in  its  place, 
and  he  has  little  doubt  now  that  my  Lord  Viscount  was 
implicated  somewhat  in  the  tmnsactions  which  always 
kept  Father  Holt  employed  and  travelling  hither  and  thither 
5  under  a  dozen  of  different  names  and  disguises.  The  Father's 
companion  went  by  the  name  of  Captain  James°;  and  it 
was  under  a  very  different  name  and  appearance  that  Harry 
Esmond  afterwards  saw  him. 

It  was  the  next  year  that  the  Fenwick  conspiracy  blew  up, 

10  which  is  a  matter  of  publick  history  now,  and  wliich  ended  in 
the  execution  of  Sir  John  and  many  more,  who  suffered  man- 
fully for  their  treason,  and  who  were  attended  to  Tyburn  by 
my  lady's  father  Dean  Armstrong,  Mr.  Collier,  and  other 
stout    non-juring   clergymen,    who    absolved    them    at    the 

15  gallows-foot. 

'Tis  known  that  when  Sir  John  was  apprehended,  discovery 
was  made  of  a  great  number  of  names  of  gentlemen  engaged 
in  the  conspiracy;  when,  with  a  noble  wisdom  and  clemency, 
the  Prince  burned  the  list  of  conspirators  furnished  to  him, 

20  and  said  he  would  know  no  more.  Now  it  was,  after  this,  that 
Lord  Castlewood  swore  his  great  oath,  that  he  would  never,  so 
help  him  Heaven,  be  engaged  in  any  transaction  against 
that  brave  and  merciful  man ;  and  so  he  told  Holt  when  the 
indefatigable  priest  visited  him,  and  would  have  had  him 

25  engage  in  a  farther  conspiracy.  After  this  my  lord  ever 
spoke  of  King  William  as  he  was  —  as  one  of  the  wisest, 
the  bravest,  and  the  greatest  of  men.  My  Lady  Esmond 
(for  her  part)  said  she  could  never  pardon  the  King,  first, 
for  ousting  his  father-in-law  from  his  throne,  and  secondly, 

30  for  not  l)(Mng  constant  to  his  wife,  the  Princess  Mary.  In- 
deed, I  think  if  Nero°  were  to  rise  again,  and  be  king  of 
England,  and  a  good  family  man,  the  ladies  would  pardon 
him.  My  lord  laughed  at  his  wife's  objections  —  the  stand- 
ard of  virtue  did  not  fit  him  much. 

35  The  last  conference  which  Mr.  Holt  had  with  his  lord- 
ship took  place  when  Harry  was  come  home  from  his  first 
vacation  from  colh^ge  (Harry  saw  his  old  tutor  but  for  a 
half-hour,  and  exchanged  no  private  words  with  him), 
and  their  talk,  whatever  it  might  be,  left  my  Lord  Viscount 


HENRY   ESMOND  119 

very  much  disturbed  in  mind  —  so  much  so,  that  his  wife, 
and  his  young  kinsman,  Henry  Esmond,  could  not  but 
observe  his  disquiet.  After  Holt  was  gone,  my  lord 
rebuffed  Esmond,  and  again  treated  him  with  the  greatest 
deference;  he  shunned  his  wife's  questions  and  company,  5 
and  looked  at  his  children  with  such  a  face  of  gloom  and 
anxiety,  muttering  "Poor  children  —  poor  children!''  in  a 
way  that  could  not  but  fill  those  whose  life  it  was  to  watch 
him  and  obey  him  with  great  alarm.  For  which  gloom,  each 
person  interested  in  the  Lord  Castlewoocl,  framed  in  his  or  10 
her  own  mind  an  interpretation. 

My  lady,  with  a  laugh  of  cruel  bitterness,  said,  "I  suppose 
the  person  at  Hexton  has  been  ill,  or  has  scolded  him  "  (for 
my  lord's  infatuation  about  ]\Irs.  Marwood  was  known 
only  too  well).  Young  Esmond  feared  for  his  money  affairs,  15 
into  the  condition  of  which  he  had  been  initiated ;  and  that 
the  expenses,  always  greater  than  his  revenue,  had  caused 
Lord  Castle  wood  disquiet. 

One   of   the   causes   why   my   Lord   Viscount   had   taken 
young  Esmond  into  his  special  favour  was  a  trivial  one,  that  20 
hath  not  before  been  mentioned,  though  it  was  a  very  lucky 
accident  in  Henry  Esmond's  life.     A  very  few  months  after 
my  lord's  coming  to  Castlewood,  in  the  wintertime  —  the  little 
boy,  being  a  child  in  a  petticoat,  trotting  about  —  it  hap- 
pened that  little  Frank  was  with  his  father  after  dinner,  25 
who  fell  asleep  over  his  wine,  heedless  of  the  child,   who 
crawled  to  the  fire;    and  as  good  fortune  would  have  it, 
Esmond  was  sent  by  his  mistress  for  the  boy  just  as  the 
poor  little  screaming  urchin's  coat  was  set  on  fire  by  a  log; 
when  Esmond,  rushing  forward,  tore  the  dress  off  the  infant,  3° 
so  Vhat  his  own  hands  were  burned  more  than  the  child's, 
who  was  frightened  rather  than  hurt  by  this  accident.     But 
certainly   'twas  providential  that  a  resolute  person  should 
have  come  in  at  that  instant,  or  the  child  had  been  burned 
to  death  probably,  my  lord  sleeping  very  heavily  after  drink-  35 
ing,  and  not  waking  so  cool  as  a  man  should  who  had  a  danger 
to  face. 

Ever  after  this  the  father,  loud  in  his  expressions  of  remorse 
and   humility   for   being  a  tipsy  good-for-nothing,   and  of 


120  HENRY   ESMOND 

admiration  for  Harry  Esmond,  whom  his  lordship  would 
style  a  hero  for  doing  a  very  trifling  service,  had  the  tenderest 
regard  for  his  son's  preserver,  and  Harry  became  quite  as 
one  of  the  family.  His  burns  were  tended  with  the  greatest 
5  care  by  his  kind  mistress,  who  said  that  Heaven  had  sent 
him  to  be  the  guardian  of  her  children,  and  that  she  would  love 
him  all  her  life. 

And  it  was  after  this,  and  from  the  very  great  love  and 
tenderness  which   had    grown    up    in   this   little  household, 

10  rather  than  to  the  exhortations  of  Dean  Armstrong  (though 
these  had  no  small  weight  with  him),  that  Harry  came  to  be 
quite  of  the  religion  of  his  house  and  his  dear  mistress,  of 
which  he  has  ever  since  been  a  professing  member.  As 
for  Dr.  Tusher's  boasts  that  he  was  the  cause  of  this  con- 

15  version  —  even  in  these  young  days  Mr,  Esmond  had  such  a 
contempt  for  the. Doctor,  that  had  Tusher  bade  him  believe 
anything  (which  he  did  not  —  never  meddling  at  all),  Harry 
would  that  instant  have  cjuestioned  the  truth  on't. 

My  lady  seldom  drank  wine ;    but  on  certain  days  of  the 

20  year,  such  as  birthdays  (poor  Harry  had  never  a  one)  and 
anniversarys,  she  took  a  little;  and  this  day,  the  29th 
December,  was  one.  At  the  end,  then,  of  this  year,  '96, 
it  might  have  been  a  fortnight  after  Mr.  Holt's  last  visit, 
Lord  Castlewood  being  still  very  gloomy  in  mind,  and  sitting 

25  at  table,  —  my  lady  bidding  a  servant  bring  her  a  glass  of 
wine,  and  looking  at  her  husband  with  one  of  her  sweet 
smiles,   said : 

"  My  lord,  will  you  not  fill  a  bumper  too,  and  let  me  call 
a  toast?" 

30  "What  is  it,  Rachel?"  says  he,  holding  out  his  empty 
glass  to  be  filled. 

"  Tis  the  29th  of  December,"  says  my  lady,  with  her 
fonfl  look  of  gratitude;  "and  my  toast  is,  "Harry  —  and 
(lod  bless  him,  who  saved  my  boy's  life  !" 

35  My  lord  looked  at  Harry  hard,  and  drank  the  glass,  but 
clapped  it  down  on  the  table  in  a  moment,  and,  with  a 
sort  of  groan,  rose  up,  and  went  out  of  the  room.  What 
was  the  matter?  We  all  knew  that  some  great  grief  was 
over  him. 


HENRY  ESMOND  121 

"WHiether  my  lord's  prudence  had  made  him  richer,  or 
legacies  had  fallen  to  him,  which  enabled  him  to  support  a 
greater  establishment  than  that  frugal  one  which  had  been 
too  much  for  his  small  means,  Harry  Esmond  knew  not,  but 
the  house  of  Castlewood  was  now  on  a  scale  much  more  5 
costly  than  it  had  been  during  the  first  years  of  his  lordship's 
coming  to  the  title.  There  were  more  horses  in  the  stable 
and  more  servants  in  the  hall,  and  many  more  guests  coming 
and  going  now  than  formerly,  when  it  was  found  difficult 
enough  by  the  strictest  economy  to  keep  the  house  as  befitted  lo 
one  of  his  lordship's  rank,  and  the  estate  out  of  debt.  And 
it  did  not  require  very  much  penetration  to  find  that  many 
of  the  new  acquaintances  at  Castlewood  were  not  agreeable 
to  the  lady  there :  not  that  she  ever  treated  them  or  any 
mortal  w4th  anything  but  courtesy;  but  they  were  persons  ^5 
who  could  not  be  welcome  to  her ;  and  whose  society  a  lady 
so  refined  and  reserved  could  scarce  desire  for  her  children. 
There  came  fuddling  squires  from  the  country  round,  who 
bawled  their  songs  under  her  windows  and  drank  themselves 
tipsy  with  my  lord's  punch  and  ale :  there  came  officers  20 
from  Hexton,  in  whose  company  our  little  lord  was  made  to 
hear  talk  and  to  drink,  and  swear  too  in  a  way  that  made 
the  delicate  lady  tremble  for  her  son.  Esmond  tried  to 
console  her  by  saying  what  he  knew  of  his  College  experience; 
that  with  this  sort  of  company  and  conversation  a  man  25 
must  fall  in  sooner  or  later  in  his  course  through  the  world : 
and  it  mattered  very  little  whether  he  heard  it  at  twelve 
years  old  or  twenty  —  the  youths  who  quitted  mothers' 
apron-strings  the  latest  being  not  uncommonly  the  wildest 
rakes.  But  it  was  about  her  daughter  tha^  Lady  Castle-  3° 
wood  was  the  most  anxious,  and  the  danger  which  she  thought 
menaced  the  little  Beatrix  from  the  indulgences  which  her 
father  gave  her  (it  must  be  owned  that  my  lord,  since  these 
unhapp}^  domestick  differences  especially,  vv-as  at  once  ^^olent 
in  his  language  to  the  children  when  angry,  as  he  was  too  35 
familiar,  not  to  sa}^  coarse,  when  he  was  in  a  good  humour), 
and  from  the  company  into  which  the  careless  lord  brought 
the  child. 

Not  verv  far  off  from  Castlewood  is  Sark  Castle,  where  the 


122  HENRY   ESMOND. 

Marchioness  of  Sark  lived,  who  was  known  to  have  been  a 
mistress  of  the  late  King  Charles  —  and  to  this  house,  whither 
indeed  a  great  part  of  the  county  gentry  went,  vny  lord  in- 
sisted upon  going,  not  only  himself,  but  on  taking  his  little 

5  daughter  and  son,  to  play  with  the  children  there.  The 
children  were  nothing  loth,  for  the  house  was  splendid  and  the 
welcome  kind  enough.  But  my  lady,  justly  no  doubt, 
thought  that  the  children  of  such  a  mother  as  that  noted 
Lady  Sark  had  been,  could  be  no  good  company  for  her  two ; 

10  and  spoke  her  mind  to  her  lord.  His  own  language  when  he 
was  thwarted  was  not  indeed  of  the  gentlest :  to  be  brief, 
there  was  a  family  dispute  on  this,  as  there  had  been  on 
many  other  points  —  and  the  lady  was  not  only  forced  to  give 
in,  for  the  other's  will  was  law  —  nor  could  she,  on  account 

15  of  their  tender  age,  tell  her  children  what  was  the  nature  of 
her  objection  to  their  visit  of  pleasure,  or  indeed  mention  to 
them  any  objection  at  all  —  but  she  had  the  additional  secret 
mortification  to  find  them  returning  delighted  with  their 
new  friends,  loaded  with  presents  from  them,  and  eager  to 

20  be  allowed  to  go  back  to  a  place  of  such  delights  as  Sark 
Castle.  Every  year  she  thought  the  company  there  would 
be  more  dangerous  to  her  daughter,  as  from  a  child  Beatrix 
grew  to  a  woman,  and  her  daily  increasing  beauty,  and  many 
faults  of  character  too,  expanded. 

25  It  was  Harry  Esmond's  lot  to  see  one  of  the  visits  which 
the  old  lady  Sark  paid  to  the  Lady  of  Castle  wood  Hall: 
whither  she  came  in  state  with  six  chestnut  horses  and  blue 
ribbons,  a  page  on  each  carriage  step,  a  gentleman  of  the 
horse,   and  armed  servants  riding  before   and  behind  her. 

30  And  but  that  it  was  unpleasant  to  see  Lady  Castlewood's  face, 
it  was  amusing  to  watch  the  behaviour  of  the  two  enemies: 
the  frigid  i)atience  of  the  younger  lady,  and  the  unconquer- 
able good-humour  of  the  elder  —  who  would  see  no  offence 
whatever  her  rival  intended,  and  who  never  ceased  to  smile 

35  and  to  laugh,  and  to  coax  the  children,  and  to  pay  compli- 
ments to  every  man,  woman,  child,  nay  dog,  or  chair  and 
table,  in  Castlewood,  so  bent  was  she  upon  admiring  every- 
thing there.  She  lauded  the  children,  and  wished  —  as 
indeed   she   well   might  —  that   her   own   family   had   been 


HENRY   ESMOND  123 

brought  up  as  well  as  those  cherubs.  She  had  never  seen 
such  a  complexion  as  dear  Beatrix's  —  though  to  be  sure  she 
had  a  right  to  it  from  father  and  mother  —  Lady  Castle- 
wood's  was  indeed  a  wonder  of  freshness,  and  Lady  Sark 
sighed  to  think  she  had  not  been  born  a  fair  woman :  and  5 
remarking  Harr}^  Esmond,  with  a  fascinating  superannuated 
smile,  she  complimented  him  on  his  wit,  which  she  said  she 
could  see  from  his  eyes  and  forehead :  and  vowed  that  she 
never  would  have  him  at  Sark  until  her  daughter  were  out 
of  the  way.  -  w 

CHAPTER   XII 

MY  LORD  MOHUN  COMES  AMONG  US  FOR  NO  GOOD 

There  had  ridden  along  with  this  old  Princess's  cavalcade, 
two  gentlemen;  her  son,  my  Lord  Firebrace,  and  his  friend 
my  Lord  jMohun,°  who  both  were  greeted  with  a  gi'eat  deal 
of  cordiality  by  the  hospitable  Lord  of  Castlewood.  My 
Lord  Firebrace  was  but  a  feeble-minded  and  weak-limbed  15 
young  nobleman,  small  in  stature  and  limited  in  understand- 
ing—  to  judge  from  the  talk  young  Esmond  had  with  him; 
but  the  other  was  a  person  of  a  handsome  presence,  with  the 
hd  air°  and  a  bright  daring  warlike  aspect,  which  according 
to  the  chronicle  of  those  days,  had  already  achieved  for  him  20 
the  conquest  of  several  beauties  and  toasts.  He  had  fought 
and  conquered  in  France,  as  well  as  in  Flanders;  he  had 
served  a  couple  of  campaigns  with  the  Prince  of  Baden  on  the 
Danube,  and  witnessed  the  rescue  of  Vienna  from  the  Turk.° 
And  he  spoke  of  his  military  exploits  pleasantly,  and  with  23 
the  manly  freedom  of  a  soldier,  so  as  to  deUght  all  his  hearers 
at  Castlewood,  who  were  little  accustomed  to  meet  a  com- 
panion so  agreeable. 

On  the  first  day  this  noble  company  came,  my  lord  would 
not  hear  of  their  departure  before  dinner,  and  carried  away  3.; 
the  gentlemen  to  amuse  them,  whilst  his  wife  was  left  to  do 
the  honours  of  her  house  to  the  old  Marchioness  and  her 
daughter  within.  They  looked  at  the  stables,  where  my 
Lord  j\Iohun  praised  the  horses,  though  there  was  but  a  poor 


124  HENRY   ESMOND 

show  there :  they  walked  over  the  old  house  and  gardens, 
and  fought  the  siege  of  Oliver's  time  over  again :  they  played 
a  game  of  rackets  in  the  old  court,  where  the  Lord  Castlewoo(\ 
beat  my  Lord  ]\Iohun,  who  said  he  loved  ball  of  all  things, 

5  and  would  quickly  come  back  to  Castlewood  for  his  revenge. 
After  dinner  they  played  bowls,  and  drank  punch  in  the 
green  alley ;  and  when  they  parted  they  w^ere  sworn  friends, 
my  Lord  Castlewood  kissing  the  other  lord  before  he  mounted 
on  horseback,  and  pronouncing  him  the  best  companion  he 

10  had  met  for  many  a  long  day.  All  night  long,  over  his 
tobacco-pipe,  Castlewood  did  not  cease  to  talk  to  Harry 
Esmond  in  praise  of  his  new  friend,  and  in  fact  did  not  leave 
off  sj^eaking  of  him  until  his  lordship  was  so  tipsy  that  he 
could  not  speak  plainly  any  more. 

15  At  breakfast  next  day  it  was  the  same  talk  renewed ;  and 
when  my  lady  said  there  was  something  free  in  the  Lord 
Mohun's  looks  and  manner  of  speech  which  caused  her  to  mis- 
trust him,  her  lord  burst  out  with  one  of  his  laughs  and  oaths ; 
said  that  he  never  liked  man,  woman,  or  beast,  but  what  she 

20  was  sure  to  be  jealous  of  it;  that  ^lohun  was  the  prettiest 
fellow  in  England  ;  that  he  hoped  to  see  more  of  him  whilst  in 
the  country;  and  that  he  would  let  Mohun  know  what  my 
Lady  Prude  said  of  him. 

"Indeed,"  Lady  Castlewood  said,  "I  liked  his  conversation 

25  well  enough.  Tis  more  amusing  than  that  of  most  people 
I  know.  I  thought  it,  I  own,  too  free ;  not  from  what  he 
said,  as  rather  from  what  he  implied." 

"Psha!    your  ladyship  does  not  know  the  world,"  said 
her  husband;    "and  you  have  always  been  as  squeamish  as 

30  when  you  were  a  miss  of  fifteen." 

"You  found  no  fault  when  I  was  a  miss  at  fifteen." 
"  Begad,  madam,  you  arc  grown  too  old  for  a  pinafore  now; 
and  I  hold  that  'tis  for  me  to  judge  what  company  my  wife 
shall  sec,"  said  my  lord,  slapjiiug  the  table. 

35  "Indeed,  Francis,  I  never  thought  otherwise,"  answered 
my  lady,  rising  and  drojiping  him  a  curtsey,  in  which  stately 
action,  if  there  was  obedience,  there  was  defiance  too;  and  in 
whicrh  a  bystander,  deeply  interested  in  the  happiness  of 
that  pair  as  Harry  Esmond  was,  might  see  how  hopelessly 


HENRY  ESMOND  125 

separated  they  were ;    what  a  great  gulf  of  difference  and 
discord  had  run  between  rhem  ! 

"By  G — d  !  Mohun  is  the  best  fellow  in  England;  and  I'll 
invite  him  here,  just  to  plague  that  woman.  Did  you  ever 
see  such  a  frigid  insolence  as  it  is,  Harry  ?  That's  the  way  she  5 
treats  me,"  he  broke  out,  storming,  and  his  face  growing  red 
as  he  clenched  his  fists  and  went  on.  "  I'm  nobody  in  my  own 
house.  I'm  to  be  the  humble  servant  of  that  parson's  daugh- 
ter. By  Jove  !  I'd  rather  she  should  fling  the  dish  at  my 
head  than  sneer  at  me  as  she  does.     She  puts  me  to  shame  i« 

before  the  children  with  her  d d  airs;  and,  I'll  swear,  tells 

Frank  and  Beaty  that  papa's  a  reprobate,  and  that  they 
ought  to  despise  me." 

"Indeed  and  indeed,  sir,  I  never  heard  her  say  a  word  but 
of  respect  regarding  you,"  Harry  Esmond  interposed.  15 

"No,  curse  it !  I  wish  she  would  speak.  But  she  never 
does.  She  scorns  me,  and  holds  her  tongue.  She  keeps  off 
from  me  as  if  I  was  a  pestilence.  By  George !  she  was  fond 
enough  of  her  pestilence  once.  And  when  I  came  a-courting, 
you  would  see  miss  blush  —  blush  red,  by  George  !  for  joy.  20 
Why,  what  do  you  think  she  said  to  me,  Harry  ?     She  said 

herself,  when  I  joked  with  her  about  her  d d  smiling  red 

cheeks :  "  'Tis  as  they  do  at  Saint  James's ;  I  put  up  my  red 
flag  when  my  king  comes."  I  was  the  king,  you  see,  she 
meant.  And  now,  sir,  look  at  her  !  I  beheve  she  would  be  25 
glad  if  I  was  dead ;  and  dead  I've  been  to  her  these  five  years 
—  ever  since  you  all  of  you  had  the  small-pox  :  and  she  never 
forgave  me  for  going  away." 

"  Indeed,  my  lord,  though  'twas  hard  to  forgive,  I  think  my 
mistress  forgave  it,"    Harry  Esmond  said;  "and  remember  30 
how  eagerly  she  watched  your  lordship's  return,  and  how 
sadly  she  turned  away  when  she  saw  your  cold  looks." 

"Damme!"  cries  out  my  lord;  "would  you  have  had  me 
wait  and  catch  the  small-pox?  Where  the  deuce  had  been 
the  good  of  that?  I'll  bear  danger  with  any  man  —  but  35 
not  useless  danger  —  no,  no.  Thank  you  for  nothing. 
And  —  you  nod  your  head,  and  I  know  very  well,  Parson 
Harry,  what  you  mean.  There  was  the  —  the  other  affair 
to  make  her  angry.     But  is  a  woman   never  to   forgive   a 


126  HENRY   ESMOND 

husband    who    goes   a-tripping?     Do   you    take    me    for    a 
saint  ?  " 

"Indeed,  sir,  I  do  not,"  says  Harr}^,  with  a  smile. 
''Since  that  time  my  wife's  as  cold  as  the  statue  at  Charing 
5  Cross.  I  tell  thee  she  has  no  forgiveness  in  her,  Henry.  Her 
coldness  blights  my  whole  life,  and  sends  me  to  the  punch- 
bowl, or  driving  about  the  country.  My  children  are  not 
mine,  but  hers,  when  we  are  together.  Tis  only  when  she  is 
out  of  sight  with  her  abominable  cold  glances,  that  run  through 

10  me,  that  they'll  come  to  me,  and  that  I  dare  to  give  them 
so  much  as  a  kiss;  and  that's  why  I  take  'em  and  love  'em° 
in  other  people's  houses,  Harry.  I'm  killed  by  the  very  virtue 
of  that  proud  woman.  Virtue  !  give  me  the  virtue  that  can 
forgive ;    give  me  the   virtue  that  thinks  not  of  preserving 

15  itself,  but  of  making  other  folks  happy.  Damme,  what 
matters  a  scar  or  two  if  'tis  got  in  helping  a  friend  in  ill  for- 
tune?" 

And  my  lord  again  slapped  the  table,  and  took  a  great 
draught  from  the  tankard.     Harry  Esmond  admired  as  he 

20  listened  to  him,  and  thought  how  the  poor  preacher  of  this 
self-sacrifice  had  fl^d  from  the  small-pox,  which  the  lady  had 
borne  so  cheerfully,  and  which  had  been  the  cause  of  so  much 
disunion  in  the  lives  of  all  in  this  house.  ''How  well  men 
preach/'  thought  the  young  man,  "and  each  is  the  example 

25  in  his  own  sermon  !  How  each  has  a  story  in  a  dispute,  and 
a  true  one,  too,  and  both  are  right,  or  wrong,  as  you  will !" 
Harry's  heart  was  pained  within  him,  to  watch  the  struggles 
and  pane;s  that  tore  the  breast  of  this  kind,  manly  friend  and 
protector. 

30  "Indeed,  sir,"  said  he,  "I  wish  to  God  that  my  mistress 
could  hear  you  speak  as  I  have  heard  you ;  she  would  know 
much  that  would  make  her  life  the  happier,  could  she  hear 
it."  But  my  lord  flung  away  with  one  of  his  oaths,  and  a 
jeer ;  he  said  that  Parson  Harry  was  a  good  fellow ;  but  that 

35  as  for  women,  all  women  were  alike  —  all  jades,  and  heart- 
less. So  a  man  dashes  a  fine  vase  down,  and  despises  it  for 
being  broken.  It  may  be  worthless  —  true:  but  who  had 
the  keeping  of  it,  and  who  shattered  it? 

Harry,  who  would  have  given  his  life  to  make  his  benefac- 


HENRY   ESMOND  127 

tress  and  her  husband  happy,  bethought  him,  now  that  he 
saw  what  my  lord's  state  of  mind  was,  and  that  he  really 
had  a  great  deal  of  that  love  left  in  his  heart,  and  ready  for 
his  wife's  acceptance,  if  she  would  take  it,  whether  he  could 
not  be  a  means  of  reconciliation  between  these  two  persons,  5 
phom  he  revered  the  most  in  the  world.  And  he  cast  about 
how  he  should  break  a  part  of  his  mind  to  his  mistress, 
and  warn  her  that  in  his,  Harry's  opinion,  at  least,  her  hus- 
band was  still  her  admirer,  and  even  her  lover. 

But  he  found  the  subject  a  very  difficult  one  to  handle,  k 
when  he  ventured  to  remonstrate,  which  he  did  in  the  very 
gravest  tone  (for  long  confidence  and  reiterated  proofs  of 
devotion  and  loyalty  had  given  him  a  sort  of  authority  in 
the  house,  v\^hich  he  resumed  as  soon  as  ever  he  returned  to 
it),  and  with  a  speech  that  should  have  some  effect,  as,  15 
indeed,  it  was  uttered  with  the  speaker's  own  heart,  he  ven- 
tured most  gently  to  hint  to  his  adored  mistress,  that  she 
was  doing  her  husband  harm  by  her  ill  opinion  of  him ;  and 
that  the  happiness  of  all  the  family  depended  upon  setting 
her  right.  2a 

She,  who  was  ordinarily  calm  and  most  gentle,  and  full  of 
smiles  and  soft  attentions,  flushed  up  when  young  Esmond  so 
spoke  to  her,  and  rose  from  her  chair,  looking  at  him  with  a 
haughtiness  and  indignation  that  he  had  never  before  known 
her  to  display.  She  was  ciuite  an  altered  being  for  that  mo-  25 
ment;  and  looked  an   angry  princess  insulted  by  a  vassal. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  me  utter  a  word  in  my  lord's  dis- 
paragement?" she  asked  hastilj^,  hissing  out  her  words,  and 
stamping  her  foot. 

"Indeed,  no,"  Esmond  said,  looking  down.  30 

'Are  you  conle  to  me  as  his  ambassador  —  youf"  she 
continued. 

"I  would  sooner  see  peace  between  you  than  anything  else 
in  the  world,"  Harry  answered,  "and  would  go  of  any  em- 
bassy that  had  that  end."  35 

"So  you  are  my  lord's  go-between?"  she  went  on,  not  re- 
garding this  speech.  "You  are  sent  to  bid  me  back  into 
slavery  again,  and  inform  me  that  my  lord's  favour  is  gra- 
ciously restored  to  his  handmaid?     He  is  weary  of  Co  vent 


128  HENRY   ESMOND 

Garden,  °  is  he,  that  he  comes  home  and  would  have  the 
fatted  calf  killed  ?'' 

"There's  good  authority  for  it,  surel}^,''  said  Esmond. 
"For  a  son,  yes;  but  my  lord  is  not  my  son.  It  was  he 
5  who  cast  me  away  from  him.  It  was  he  who  broke  our  hap- 
piness down,  and  he  bids  me  to  repair  it.  It  was  he  who 
showed  himself  to  me  at  last,  as  he  was,  not  as  I  had  thought 
him.  It  is  he  who  comes  before  my  children  stupid  and 
senseless  with  wine  —  who  leaves  our  company  for  that  of 

lo  frequenters  of  taverns  and  bagnios  —  who  goes  from  his 
home  to  the  city  yonder  and  his  friends  there,  and  when  he 
is  tired  of  them  returns  hither,  and  expects  that  I  shall  kneel 
and  welcome  him.  And  he  sends  you  as  his  chamberlain ! 
What  a  proud  embassy !     ]\Ionsieur,  I  make  you  my  com- 

15  pliment  of  the  new  place.'' 

"It  would  be  a  proud  embass}^  and  a  happy  embass}^  too 
could  I  bring  you  and  my  lord  together,"  Esmond  replied. 

"I  presume  you  have  fulfilled  your  mission  now,  sir. 
Twas  a  pretty  one  for  j^ou  to  undertake.     I  don't  know 

20  whether  'tis  your  Cambridge  philosophy  or  time  that  has 
altered  your  ways  of  thinking,"  Lady  Castlewood  continued, 
still  in  a  sarcastick  toiie.  "Perhaps  you  too  have  learned 
to  love  drink,  and  to  hiccup  over  your  wine  or  punch;  — 
which  is  your  worship's  favourite  liquor?     Perhaps  you  too 

25  put  up  at  the  Rose  on  your  way  through  London,  and  have 
your  acquaintances  in  Covent  Garden.  My  services  to  you, 
sir,  to  principal  and  ambassador,  to  master  and  —  and 
lacquey." 

"Great  heavens!    madam,"  cried  Harry.     "What  have  I 

30  done  that  thus,  for  a  second  time,  you  insult  me  ?  Do  you 
wish  me  to  blush  for  what  I  used  to  be  proud  of,  that  I  lived 
on  your  bounty?  Next  to  doing  you  a  service  (which  my 
life  would  pay  for),  you  know  that  to  receive  one  from  you 
is  my  highest  pleasure.     What  wrong  have  I  done  you  that 

35  you  should  woimd  me  so,  cruel  woman  ?  " 

"What  wrong?"  she  said,  looking  at  Esmond  with  wild 
eyes.  "Well,  none  —  none  that  you  know  of,  Harry,  or 
could  help.  Why  did  you  bring  back  the  small-pox,"  she 
added  after  a  pause,  "from  Castlewood  village?     You  could 


HENRY  ESMOND  129 

not  help  it,  could  you?  Which  of  us  knows  whither  Fate 
leads  us?  But  we  w-ere  all  happy,  Henry,  till  then."  And 
Harry  went  away  from  this  colloquy,  thinking  still  that  the 
estrangement  between  his  patron  and  his  beloved  mistress  was 
remediable,  and  that  each  had  at  heart  a  strong  attachment  5 
to  the  oth3:-. 

The  intimacy  between  the  Lords  i\Iohun  and  Castlewood 
appeared  to  increase  as  long  as  the  former  remained  in  the 
country;  and  my  Lord  of  Castlewood  especially  seemed 
never  to  b3  hapjDy  out  of  his  nev/  comrade's  sight.  They  lo 
sported  together,  they  drank,  they  played  bowls  and  tennis : 
my  Lord  ^.'astlewood  would  go  for  three  days  to  Sark,  and 
bring  back  my  Lord  T^Iohun  to  Castlewood  —  where  indeed 
his  lordship  made  himself  very  welcome  to  all  persons,  having 
a  joke  or  a  new  game  at  romps  for  the  children,  all  the  tallc  15 
of  the  town  for  my  lord,  and  mu-ick  and  gallantry  and  plenty 
of  the  heau  langage°  for  my  lady,  and  for  Harry  Esmond, 
who  was  never  tired  of  hearing  his  stories  of  his  campaigns 
and  his  life  at  Vienna,  Venice,  Paris,  and  the  famous  cities 
of  Europe  which  he  had  visited  both  in  peace  and  war.  And  20 
he  sang  at  my  lady's  harpsichord,  and  played  cards  or 
backgammon,  or  his  new  game  of  bilHards  with  my  lord  (of 
whom  he  invariably  got  the  better) ;  always  having  a  con- 
summate good  humour,  and  beaiing  himself  with  a  certain 
manly  grace,  that  might  exhibit  somewhat  of  the  camp  25 
and  Alsatia°  perhaps,  but  that  had  its  charm  and  stamped 
him  a  gentleman :  and  his  manner  to  Lady  Castlewood  was 
so  devoted  and  respectful,  that  she  soon  recovered  from 
the  first  feelings  of  dislike  which  she  had  conceived  against 
him  —  nay,  before  long,  began  to  be  interested  in  his  sphit-  30 
ual  welfare,  and  hopeful  of  his  conversion,  lending  him 
books  of  piety,  which  he  promised  dutifully  to  study.  With 
her  my  lord  talked  of  reform,  of  settling  into  quiet  life, 
quitting  the  court  and  town,  and  buying  some  land  in  the 
neighbourhood  —  though  it  must  be  owned  that  when  the  35 
two  lords  were  together  over  their  Burgundy  after  dinner, 
their  talk  was  very  different,  and  there  was  very  little  ques- 
tion of  conversion  on  my  Lord  Mohun's  part.  When  they 
got  to  their  second  bottle,  Harry  Esmond   used  commonly 


130  HENRY  ESMOND 

to  leave  these  two  noble  topers,  who,  though  they  talked 
freely  enough.  Heaven  knows,  in  his  presence  (Good  Lord, 
what  a  set  of  stories,  of  Alsatia  and  Spring  Garden,  °  of  the 
taverns  and  gaming-houses,  of  the  ladies  of  the  court,  and 
5  mesdames°  of  the  theatres,  he  can  recall  out  of  their  godly 
conversation  !)  —  although  I  say  they  talked  before  Esmond 
freely,  yet  they  seemed  pleased  when  he  went  away;  and 
then  thej^  had  another  bottle,  and  then  they  fell  to  cards,  and 
then  my  Lord  Mohun  came  to  her  ladyship's  drawing-room; 

10  leaving  his  boon  companion  to  sleep  off  his  wine. 

'Twas  a  point  of  honour  with  the  fine  gentlemen  of  those 
days  to  lose  or  win  magnificently  at  their  horse-matches,  or 
games  of  cards  and  dice  —  and  you  could  never  tell  from  the 
demeanour  of  these  two  lords  afterwards,  which  had  been 

15  successful  and  which  the  loser  at  their  games.  And  when 
my  lady  hinted  to  my  lord  that  he  played  more  than  she 
liked,  he  dismissed  her  with  a  ''pish,"  and  swore  that  nothing 

-  was  more  equal  than  play  betwixt  gentlemen,  if  they  did 
but  keep  it  up  long  enough.     And  these  kept  it  up  long 

20  enough  j^ou  may  be  sure.  A  man  of  fashion  of- that  time 
often  passed  a  quarter  of  his  day  at  cards,  and  another 
quarter  at  drink :  I  have  known  many  a  pretty  fellow,  who 
was  a  wit  too,  ready  of  repartee,  and  possessed  of  a  thousand 
graces,  who  would  be  puzzled  if  he  had  to  write  more  than 

25  his  name. 

There  is  scarce  any  thoughtful  man  or  woman,  I  suppose, 
but  can  look  back  upon  his  course  of  past  life  and  remember 
some  point,  trifling  as  it  may  have  seemed  at  the  time  of 
occurrence,  which  has  nevertheless  turned  and  altered  his 

30  whole  career.  'Tis  with  almost  all  of  us,  as  in  M.  Massillon's 
magnificent  image  regarding  King  William, °  a  grain  de  sable° 
that  perverts  or  perhaps  overthrows  us;  and  so  it  was  but 
a  light  word  flung  in  the  air,  a  mere  freak  of  a  perverse 
child's  temper,  that  brought  down  a  whole  heap  of  crushing 

35  woes  upon  that  family  whereof  Harry  Esmond  formed  a 
part. 

Coming  home  to  his  dear  Castlewood  in  the  third  year  of  his 
academical  course  (wherein  he  had  now  obtained  some  dis- 
tinction, his  Latin  Poem  on  the  death  of  the  Duke  of  Gloces- 


HENRY   ESMOND  131 

cer,  Princess  Anne  of  Denmark 's°  son,  having  gained  him 
a  medal,  and  introduced  him  to  the  society  of  the  University 
wits),  Esmond  found  his  httle  friend  and  pupil  Beatrix 
grown  to  be  taller  than  her  mother,  a  slim  and  lovely  young 
girl,  with  cheeks  mantling  with  health  and  roses :  with  eyes  5 
like  stars  shining  out  of  azure,  with  waving  bronze  hair 
clustered  about  the  fairest  young  forehead  ever  seen :  and  a 
mien  and  shape  haughty  and  beautiful,  such  as  that  of  the 
famous  antique  statue  of  the  Huntress  Diana°  —  at  one  time 
haughty,  rapid,  imperious,  with  eyes  and  arrows  that  dart  lo 
and  kill.  Harry  watched  and  wondered  at  this  young 
creature,  and  likened  her  in  his  mind  to  Artemis  with  the 
ringing  bow  and  shafts  flashing  death  upon  the  children 
of  Xiobe°;  at  another  time  she  was  coy  and  melting  as 
Luna  shining  tenderly  upon  Endymion.°  This  fair  creature,  15 
this  lustrous  Phcebe,°  was  only  young  as  yet,  nor  had  nearly 
reached  her  full  splendour :  but  crescent  and  brilliant,  our 
young  gentleman  of  the  University,  his  head  full  of  poetical 
fancies,  his  heart  perhaps  throbbing  with  desires  undefined, 
admired  this  rising  3^oung  divinity ;  and  gazed  at  her  (though  20 
only  as  at  some  "bright  particular  star,"  far  above  his  earth) 
with  endless  delight  and  wonder.  She  had  been  a  coquette 
from  the  earliest  times  almost,  trying  her  freaks  and  jeal- 
ousies, her  wayward  frolicks,  and  winning  caresses  upon  all 
that  came  within  her  reach ;  she  set  her  women  quarrelling  25 
in  the  nursery,  and  practised  her  eyes  on  the  groom  as  she 
rode  behind  him  on  the  pillion. 

She  was  the  darling  and  torment  of  father  and  mother. 
She  intrigued  with  each  secretly ;  and  bestowed  her  fondness 
and  withdrew  it,  plied  them  with  tears,  smiles,  kisses,  cajole-  30 
ments ;  —  when  the  mother  w^as  angry,  as  happened  often, 
flew  to  the  father,  and  sheltering  behind  him,  pursued  her 
\4ctim;  when  both  were  displeased,  transferred  her  caresses 
to  the  domesticks,  or  watched  until  she  could  win  back 
her  parents'  good  graces,  either  by  surprising  them  into  33 
laughter  and  good  humour,  or  appeasing  them  by  submission 
and  artful  humility.  She  was  scevo  Iceta  7iegotio°  like  that 
fickle  goddess  Horace  describes,  and  of  whose  ''malicious 
joy''  a  great  poet°  of  our  own  has  written  so  nobly  —  who 


132  HENRY   ESMOND 

famous  and  heroick  as  he  was,  was  not  strong  enough  to 
resist  the  torture  of  women. 

It  was  but  three  years  before,  that  the  child  then  but 
ten  years  old  had  nearly  managed  to  make  a  quarrel  between 

5  Harry  Esmond  and  his  comrade,  good-natured  phlegmatick 
Thos.  Tusher,  who  never  of  his  own  seeking  quarrelled  with 
anybody:  by  quoting  to  the  latter  some  silly  joke  which 
Harry  had  made  regarding  him  —  (it  was  the  merest,  idlest 
jest,  though  it  near  drove  two  old  friends  to  blows,  and  I 

10  think  such  a  battle  would  have  pleased  her)  —  and  from  that 
day  Tom  kept  at  a  distance  from  her;  and  she  respected 
him,  and  coaxed  him  sedulously  whenever  they  met.  But 
Harry  was  much  more  easily  appeased,  because  he  was 
fonder  of  the   child :    and   when   she   made   mischief,   used 

15  cutting  speeches,  or  caused  her  friends  pain;  she  excused 
herself  for  her  fault,  not  by  admitting  and  deploring  it, 
but  by  pleading  not  guilty,  and  asserting  innocence  so  con- 
stantly, and  with  such  seeming  artlessness,  that  it  was  im- 
possible to  question  her  plea.     In  her  childhood,  they  were 

20  but  mischiefs  then  which  she  did ;  but  her  power  became  more 
fatal  as  she  grew  older  —  as  a  kitten  first  plays  with  a  ball, 
and  then  pounces  on  a  bird  and  kills  it.  Tis  not  to  be 
imagined  that  Harry  Esmond  had  all  this  experience  at  this 
early  stage  of  his  life,  whereof  he  is  now  writing  the  history 

25  —  many  things  here  noted  were  but  known  to  him  in  later 
days.  Almost  everything  Beatrix  did  or  undid  seemel 
good,  or  at  least  pardonable,  to  him  then  and  years  afte- 
wards. 

It  happened,   then,   that   Harry  Esmond  came  home  to 

30  Castlewood  for  his  last  vacation,  with  good  hopes  of  a  fellow- 
ship at  his  college,  and  a  contented  resolve  to  advance  his 
fortune  that  way.  Twas  in  the  first  year  of  the  present 
century,  Mr.  Esmond  (as  far  as  he  knew  the  period  of  his 
birth)    being    then    twenty-two    years    old.     He    found    his 

35  quondam  pupil  shot  up  into  this  beauty  of  which  wc  have 
spoken,  and  promising  yet  more :  her  l)rother,  my  lord's 
son,  a  handsome  high-spirited  brave  larl,  generous  and 
frank,  and  kind  to  everybody,  save  perhaps  his  sister,  with 
whom  Frank  was  at  war  (and  not  from  his  bat  her  fault)  — 


HENRY   ESMOND  133 

adoring  his  mother,  whose  joy  he  was :  and  taking  her  side 
in  the  unhappy  matrimonial  differences  which  were  now 
permanent,  while  of  course  Mistress°  Beatrix  ranged  with 
her  father.  When  heads  of  families  fall  out,  it  must  naturally 
be  that  their  dependents  wear  tne  one  or  the  other  party's  5 
colour;  and  even  in  the  parliaments  in  the  servants'  hall  or 
the  stables,  Harry,  who  had  an  early  observant  turn,  could 
see  which  were  my  lord's  adherents  and  w^hich  my  lady's, 
and  conjecture  pretty  shrewdly  how  their  unlucky  quarrel 
was  debated.  Our  lacqueys  sit  in  judgment  on  us.  My  ic 
lord's  intrigues  may  be  ever  so  stealthily  conducted,  but  his 
valet  knows  them ;  and  my  lady's  woman  carries  her  mistress's 
private  history  to  the  servant's  scandal-market,  and  ex- 
changes it  against  the  secrets  of  other  abigails.° 


CHAPTER  XIII 

MY    LORD    LEAVES    US    AND    HIS    EVIL    BEHIND    HIM 

My  Lord  Mohun  (of  whose  exploits  and  fame  some  of  the  15 
gentlemen  of  the  University  had  brought  down  but  ugly 
reports)  was  once  more  a  guest  at  Castlewood,  and  seemingly 
more  intimately  allied  with  my  lord  even  than  before.     Once 
in  the  spring  those  two  noblemen  had  ridden  to  Cambridge 
from  Newmarket,  °  whither   they  had  gone  for  the  horse-  20 
racing,   and  had  honoured  Harry  Esmond  with  a  visit  at 
his  rooms ;   after  which  Doctor  Montague,  the  master  of  the 
College,  who  had  treated  Harry  somewhat  haughtily,  seeing 
his  familiarity  with  these   great  folks,   and  that  my  Lord 
Castlewood  laughed  and  walked  with  his  hand  on  Harry's  25 
shoulder,    relented   to    Mr.    Esmond,    and    condescended   to 
be  very  civil  to  him ;   and  some  days  after  his  arrival,  Harry, 
laughing,  told  this  story  to  Lady  Esmond,  remarking  how 
strange  it  was  that  men  famous  for  learning  and  renowned 
over  Europe,  should,  nevertheless,  so  bow  down  to  a  title,  3° 
and  cringe  to  a  nobleman,  ever  so  poor.     At  this  ]\Irs.  Bea- 
trix flung  up   her  head,  and  said,  it  became  those  of  low 
origin  to  respect  their  betters ;   that  the  parsons  made  them- 


134  HENRY  ESMOND 

selves  a  great  deal  too  proud,  she  thought;  and  that  she 
liked  the  way  at  Lady  Sark's  best,  where  the  chaplain, 
though  he  loved  pudding,  as  all  parsons  do,  always  went 
away  before  the  custard. 
5  ''And  when  I  am  a  parson,''  says  Mr.  Esmond,  "will  you 
give  me  no  custard,  Beatrix?" 

"You  —  you  are  different,"  Beatrix  answered.  "You 
are  of  our  blood." 

"My  father  was  a  parson,  as  you  call  him,"  said  my  lady. 

10  "But  mine  is  a  peer  of  Ireland,"  says  Mistress  Beatrix, 
tossing  her  head.  "Let  people  know  their  places.  I  suppose 
you  will  have  me  go  dovvai  on  my  knees  and  ask  a  blessing  of 
Mr.  Thomas  Tusher,  that  has  just  been  made  a  curate,  and 
whose  mother  was  a  waiting-maid." 

15  And  she  tossed  out  of  the  room,  being  in  one  of  her  flighty 
humours  then. 

When  she  was  gone,  my  lady  looked  so  sad  and  grave, 
that  Harry  asked  the  cause  of  her  disquietude.  She  said 
it  was  not  merely  what  he  said  of  Newmarket,  but  what  she 

20  had  remarked,  with  great  anxiety  and  terror,  that  my  lord, 
ever  since  his  acquaintance  with  the  Lord  Mohun  especially, 
had  recurred  to  his  fondness  for  play,  which  he  had  renounced 
since  his  marriage. 

"But  men  promise  more  than  they  are  able  to  perform  in 

25  marriage,"  said  my  lady,  with  a  sigh.  "I  fear  he  has  lost 
large  sums;  and  our  property,  always  small,  is  dwindling 
away  under  this  reckless  dissipation.  I  heard  of  him  in 
London  with  very  wild  company.  Since  his  return  letters 
and  lawyers  are  constantly  coming  and  going:   he  seems  to 

30  me  to  have  a  constant  anxiety,  though  he  hides  it  under 
boisterousness  and  laughter.  I  looked  through  —  through  the 
door  last  night,  and  —  and  before,"  said  my  lady,  "and  saw 
them  at  cards  after  midnight :  no  estate  will  bear  that 
extravagance,  much  less  ours,  which  will  be  so  diminished, 

35  that  my  son  will  have  nothing  at  all,  and  my  i)oor  Beatrix 
no  portion ! " 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you,  madam,"  said  Harry  Esmond, 
sighing,  and  wishing  that  unavailingly,  and  for  the  thousandth 
time  in  his  life. 


HENRY  ESMOND  135 

''Who  can?  Only  God,"  said  Lady  Esmond  —  "only 
God,  in  whose  hands  we  are."  And  so  it  is,  and  for  his  rule 
over  his  family,  and  for  his  conduct  to  wife  and  children  — 
subjects  over  whom  his  power  is  monarchical,  any  one  who 
watches  the  world  must  think  with  trembling  sometimes  of  5 
t'le  account  which  many  a  man  will  have  to  render.  For 
In  our  society  there's  no  law  to  control  the  King  of  the  Fire- 
S:le.  He  is  master  of  property,  happiness,  —  life  almost. 
He  is  free  to  punish,  to  make  happy  or  unhappy,  to  ruin  or  to 
torture.  He  may  kill  a  wife  gradually,  and  be  no  more  lo 
questioned  than  the  Grand  Seignior°  who  drowns  a  slave  at 
midnight.  He  may  make  slaves  and  hypocrites  of  his  chil- 
dren;  or  friends  and  freemen;  or  drive  them  into  revolt 
and  enmity  against  the  natural  law  of  love.  I  have  heard 
politicians  and  coffee-house  wiseacres  talking  over  the  15 
newspaper,  and  railing  at  the  tyranny  of  the  French  King, 
and  the  Emperor,  and  wondered  how  these  (who  are  mon- 
archs,  too,  in  their  way)  govern  their  own  dominions  at 
home,  where  each  man  rules  absolute?  ^yhen  the  annals 
of  each  little  reign  are  shown  to  the  Supreme  Master,  under  2c 
vjhom  we  hold  so^'ereignty,  histories  will  be  laid  bare  of  house- 
hold tyrants  as  cruel  as  Amurath,  and  as  savage  as  Xero, 
and  as  reckless  and  dissolute  as  Charles. 

If  Harry  Esmond's  patron  erred,  'twas  in  the  latter  way, 
from   a   disposition   rather   self-indulgent   than   cruel :    and  25 
he  might  have  been  brought  back  to  much  better  feelings, 
had  time  been  given  to  him  to  bring  his  repentance  to  a 
lasting  reform. 

As  my  lord  and  his  friend  Lord  Mohun  were  such  close 
companions.  Mistress  Beatrix  chose  to  be  jealous  of  the  30 
latter;  and  the  two  gentlemen  often  entertained  each  other 
by  laughing,  in  their  rude  boisterous  way,  at  the  child's 
freaks  of  anger  and  show  of  dislike.  ''When  thou  art 
old  enough,  thou  shalt  marry  Lord  Mohun,"  Beatrix's 
father  would  say:  on  which  the  girl  would  pout  and  sa}^,  35 
"I  would  rather  marry  Tom  Tus^ier.°"  And  because  the 
Lord  ^lohun  always  showed  an  extreme  gallantry  to  my  Lady 
Castlewood,  whom  he  professed  to  admire  devotedly,  one  day, 
in  answer  to  this  old  joke  of  her  father's,  Beatrix  said,  "I 


136  HENRY   ESMOND 

think  my  lord  would  rather  marry  mamma  than  marry  mej 
and  is  waiting  till  you  die  to  ask  her." 

The  words  were  said  lightly  and  pertly  by  the  girl  one  night 
before  supper,  as  the  family  party  were  assembled  near  the 

5  great  fire.  The  two  lords,  who  were  at  cards,  both  gave  a  start ; 
my  lady  turned  as  red  as  scarlet,  and  bade  Mistress  Beatrix 
go  to  her  own  chamber  :  whereupon  the  girl,  putting  on,  as  her 
wont  was,  the  most  innocent  air,  said,  "  I  am  sure  I  meant  no 
wrong ;  I  am  sure  mamma  talks  a  great  deal  more  to  Harry 

10  Esmond  than  she  does  to  papa — and  she  cried  when  Harry  went 
away,  and  she  never  does  when  papa  goes  away ;  and  last  night 
she  talked  to  Lord  Mohun  for  ever  so  long,  and  sent  us  out 
of  the  room,  and  cried  when  we  came  back,  and  — " 

''D n!''   cried   ou^  my  Lord   ("astlewood,   out   of  all 

15  patience.  "Go  out  of  the  room,  you  little  viper;"  and  he 
started  up  and  flung  down  his  cards. 

"Ask  Lord  Mohun  what  I  said  to  him,  Francis,"  her  lady* 

*  ship  said,  rising  up  with  a  scared  face,  but  yet  with  a  great  and 
touching  dignity  and  candour  in  her  look  and  voice.     "Come 

20  away  with  me,  Beatrix."  Beatrix  sprung  up  too :  she  was 
in  tears  now. 

"Dearest  mamma,  what  have  I  done?"  she  asked.  "Sure 
I  meant  no  harm."  And  she  clung  to  her  mother,  and  the 
pair  went  out  sobbing  together. 

25  "I  will  tell  you  what  your  wife  said  to  me,  Frank,"  my 
Lord  Mohun  cried —  "Parson  Harry  may  hear  it;  and,  as  I 
hope  for  heaven,  every  word  I  say  is  true.  Last  night,  with 
tears  in  her  eyes,  your  wife  implored  me  to  play  no  more  with 
you  at  dice  or  at  cards,  and  you  know  best  whether  what  she 

30  asked  was  not  for  your  good." 

"Of  course  it  was,  Mohun,"  says  my  lord  in  a  dry  hard 
voice.  "Of  course,  you  are  a  model  of  a  man:  and  the 
world  knows  what  a  saint  you  are." 

My  Lord  Mohun  was  separated  from  his  wife,  and  had  had 

35  many  affairs  of  honour  :  of  which  women  as  usual  had  been  the 
cause. 

"I  am  no  saint,  though  your  wife  is  —  and  I  can  answer 
for  my  actions  as  other  people  must  for  their  words,"  said  my 
Lord   Mohun. 


HENRY   ESMOND  137 

"By  G — ,  my  lord,  you  shall,"  cried  the  other  starting  up. 

"We  have  another  little  account  to  settle  first,  my  lord," 
says  Lord  Mohun.  —  Whereupon  Harry  J]smond  filled  with 
alarm  for  the  consequences  to  which  this  disastrous  dispute 
might  lead,  broke  out  into  the  most  vehement  expostulations  5 
with  his  patron  and  his  adversary.     "  Gracious  heavens  !  "  he 
said,  "my  lord,  are  you  going  to  draw  a  sword  upon  your 
friend  in  your  own  house  ?     Can  you  doubt  the  honour  of  a 
lady  who  is  as  pure  as  Heaven,  and  would  die  a  thousand 
times  rather  than  do  3'ou  a  wrong?     Are  the  idle  words  of  ic 
a  jealous   child  to   set   friends  at   variance?     Has  not  my 
mistress,  as  much  as  she  dared  do,  besought  your  lordship, 
as  the  truth  must  be  told,  to  break  your  intimacy  with  my 
Lord  Mohun ;    and  to  give  up  the  habit  which  may  bring 
ruin  on  vour  family?     But  for  my  Lord  Mohun 's  illness,  had  15 
he  not  left  you?" 

"  'Faith,  Frank,  a  man  with  a  gouty  toe  can't  run  after 
other  men's  wives,"  broke  out  my  Lord  ^lohun,  who  indeed 
was  in  that  way,  and  with  a  laugh  and  look  at  his  swathed 
limb  so  frank  and  comical,  that  the  other  dashing  his  fist  20 
across  his  forehead  was  caught  by  that  infectious  good  hu- 
mour, and  said  with  his  oath,  "D n  it,  Harry,  I  believe 

thee,"  and  so  this  c[uarrel  was  over,  and  the  two  gentlemen, 
at  swords  drawn  but  just  now,  dropped  their  points  and 
shook  hands.  25 

Beati  pacifici°  "Go  bring  my  lady  back,"  said  Harry's 
patron.  Esmond  went  away  only  too  glad  to  be  the  bearer 
of  such  good  news.  He  found  her  at  the  door  ;  she  had  been 
hstening  there,  but  went  back  as  he  came.  She  took  both 
his  hands,  hers  were  marble  cold.  She  seemed  as  if  she  30 
would  fall  on  his  shoulder.  "Thank  you,  and  God  bless  you, 
my  dear  brother  Harry,"  she  said.  She  kissed  his  hand, 
Esmond  felt  her  tears  upon  it :  and  leading  her  into  the  room, 
and  up  to  my  lord,  the  Lord  Castlewood  with  an  outbreak  of 
feeling  and  affection  such  as  he  had  not  exhibited  for  many  35 
a  long  day,  took  his  wife  to  his  heart,  and  bent  over  and 
kissed  her  and  asked  her  pardon. 

"  'Tis  time  for  me  to  go  to  roost.     I  will  have  my  gruel 
a-bed,"  said  my  Lord  Mohun:   and  limped  off  comically  on 


138  HENRY  ESMOND 

Harry  Esmond's  arm.  "  By  George,  that  woman  is  a  pearl," 
he  said ;  •'  and  'tis  only  a  pig  that  wouldn't  value  her.  Have 
you  seen  the  vulgar  trapesing"  orange-girl  whom  Esmond 

"  but  here  Mr.   Esmond  interrupted  him,  sajang  that 

5  these  were  not  affairs  for  him  to  know. 

My  lord's  gentleman  came  in  to  wait  upon  his  master,  who 
was  no  sooner  in  his  nightcap  and  dressing-gown  than  he  had 
another  visitor  whom  his  host  insisted  on  sending  to  him  :  and 
this  was  no  other  than  the  Lady  Castlewood  herself  with  the 

10  toast  and  gruel,  which  her  husband  bade  her  make  and 
carry  with  her  own  hands  in  to  her  guest. 

Lord  Castlewood  stood  looking  after  his  wife  as  she  went 
on  this  errand,  and  as  he  looked,  Harry  Esmond  could  not 
but  gaze  on  him,  and  remarked  in  his  patron's  face  an  ex- 

15  pression  of  love,  and  grief,  and  care,  which  very  much  moved 
and  touched  the  young  man.  Lord  Castlewood 's  hands  fell 
down  at  his  sides,  and  his  head  on  his  breast,  and  presently 
he  said : 

"You  heard  what  Mohun  said,  parson?" 

20      "That  my  lady  was  a  saint?" 

"That  there  are  two  accounts  to  settle.  I  have  been  going 
^VTong  these   five   years,    Harry   Esmond.     Ever   since   you 

brought   that   d d   small-pox  into  the  house,  there  has 

been  a  fate  pursuing  me,  and  I  had  best  have  died  of  it,  and 

25  not  run  away  from  it,  like  a  coward.  I  left  Beatrix  with  her 
relations,  and  went  to  London;  and  I  fell  among  thieves, 
Harry,  and  I  got  back  to  confounded  cards  and  dice,  which 
I  hadn't  touched  since  my  marriage  —  no,  not  since  I  was  in 
the  Duke's  Guard,  with  those  wild  ]\Iohocks.°     And  I  have 

30  been  playing  worse  and  worse,  and  going  deeper  and  deeper 
into  it ;  and  I  owe  Mohun  two  thousand  pounds  now ;  and 
when  it's  paid  I  am  little  better  than  a  beggar.  I  don't  like 
to  look  my  boy  in  the  face :  he  hates  me,  I  know  he  does. 
And  I  have  spent  Beaty's  little  portion;  and  the  Lord  knows 

35  what  will  come  if  I  Hve;  the  best  thing  I  can  do  is  to  die 
and  release  what  portion  of  the  estate  is  redeemable  for  the 
boy." 

Mohun  was  as  much  master  at  Castlewood  as  the  owner  of 
the  Hall  itself ;  and  his  equipages  filled  the  stables,  where, 


HENRY   ESMOND  139 

indeed,  there  was  room  in  plenty  for  many  more  horses  than 
Harry  Esmond's  impoverished  patron  could  afford  to  keep. 
He  had  arrived  on  horseback  with  his  people ;  but  when  his 
gout  broke  out  my  Lord  Mohun  sent  to  London  for  a  light 
chaise  he  had,  drawn  by  a  pair  of  small  horses,  and  running  5 
as  swift,  wherever  roads  were  good,  as  a  Laplander's  sledge. 
When  this  carriage  came,  his  lordship  was  eager  to  drive  the 
Lady  Castlewood  abroad  in  it,  and  did  so  many  times,  and 
at  a  rapid  pace,  greatly  to  his  companion's  enjoyment,  who 
loved  the  swift  motion  and  the  healthy  breezes  over  the  ic 
downs  which  lie  hard  upon  Castlewood,  and  stretch  thence 
towards  the  sea.  As  tliis  amusement  was  very  pleasant  to 
her,  and  her  lord,  far  from  showing  any  mistrust  of  her 
intimacy  with  Lord  Mohun,  encouraged  her  to  be  his  com- 
panion —  as  if  willing,  by  his  present  extreme  confidence,  to  15 
make  up  for  any  past  mistrust  which  his  jealousy  had  shown — 
the  Lady  Castlewood  enjoyed  herself  freely  in  this  harmless 
diversion,  which,  it  must  be  owned,  her  guest  was  very  eager 
to  give  her ;  and  it  seemed  that  she  grew  the  more  free  with 
Lord  ^lohun,  and  pleased  with  his  company,  because  of  some  20 
sacrifice  which  his  gallantr}^  was  pleased  to  make  in  her 
favour. 

Seeing  the  two  gentlemen  constantly  at  cards  still  of  even- 
ings, Harry  Esmond  one   day  deplored  to  his  mistress  that 
this  fatal  infatuation  of  her  lord  should  continue ;   and  now  25 
they  seemed  reconciled  together,  begged  his  lady  to  hint  to 
her  husband  that  he  should  play  no  more. 

But  Lady  Castlewood,  smiling  archh'  and  gaily,  said  she 
would  speak  to  him  presently,  and  that,  for  a  few  nights  more 
at  least,  he  might  be  let  to  have  his  amusement.  30 

"  Indeed, madam,"  said  Harry,  "you  know  not  what  it  costs 
you;  and  'tis  easy  for  any  observer  who  knows  the  game, 
to  see  that  Lord  5lohun  is  by  far  the  stronger  of  the  two." 

"I  know  he  is,"  says  my  lady,  still  with  exceeding  good 
humour:    "he  is  not  only  the  best   player,  but  the  kindest  35 
player  in  the  world." 

"Madam,  madam,"  Esmond  cried,  transported  and 
provoked.  "Debts  of  honour  must  be  paid  some  time  or 
other;    and  my  master  will  be  ruined  if  he  goes  on." 


140  HENRY  ESMOND 

"Harry,  shall  I  tell  you  a  secret?"  my  lady  replied,  wHh 
kindness  and  pleasure  still  in  her  eyes.  •  "Francis  will  not  be 
ruined  if  he  goes  on ;  he  will  be  rescued  if  he  goes  on.  I  re- 
pent of  ha\'ing  spoken  and  thought  unkindly  of  the  Lord 
5  Mohun  when  he  was  here  in  the  past  year.  He  is  full  of 
much  kindness  and  good;  and  'tis  my  belief  that  we  shall 
bring  him  to  better  things.  I  have  lent  him  Tillotson  and 
your  favorite  Bishop  Taylor,  °  and  he  is  much  touched,  he 
says;   and  as  a  proof  of  his  repentance  (and  herein  lies  my. 

10  secret)  — what  do  you  think  he  is  doing  with  Francis?  He 
is  letting  poor  Frank  win  his  money  back  again.  He  hath 
won  already  at  the  last  four  nights;  and  my  Lord  Mohun 
says  that  he  will  not  be  the  means  of  injuring  poor  Frank  and 
my  dear  children." 

15  "And  in  God's  name,  what  do  you  return  him  for  this 
sacrifice  ?"  asked  Esmond,  aghast :  who  knew  enough  of  men, 
and  of  this  one  in  particular,  to  be  aware  that  such  a  finished 
rake  gave  nothing  for  nothing.  "How,  in  Heaven's  name, 
are  you  to  pay  him?" 

20  "  Pay  him  !  With  a  mother's  blessing  and  a  wife's  prayers  ! " 
cries  my  lady,  clasping  her  hands  together.  Harry  Esmond 
did  not  know  whether  to  laugh,  to  be  angry,  or  to  love  his 
dear  mistress  more  than  ever  for  the  obstinate  innocency 
with  which  she  chose  to  regard  the  conduct  of  a  man  of  the 

25  world,  whose  designs  he  knew  better  how  to  interpret.  He 
told  the  lady,  guardedly,  but  so  as  to  make  his  meaning  quite 
clear  to  her,  what  he  knew  in  respect  of  the  former  life  and 
conduct  of  this  nobleman  ;  of  other  women  against  whom 
he  had  plotted,  and  whom  he  had  overcome ;   of  the  conver- 

30  sation  which  he  Harry  himself  had  had  with  Lord  Mohun, 
wherein  the  lord  made  a  boast  of  his  libertinism,  and  fre- 
quently avowed  that  he  held  all  women  to  be  fair  game  (as 
his  lordship  styled  this  pretty  sport),  and  that  they  were  all, 
without  exception,  to  be  won.     And  the  return  Harry  had 

35  for  his  entreaties  and  remonstrances  was  a  fit  of  anger  on 
Lady  Castlewood's  part,  wlio  would  not  listen  to  his  accusa- 
tions, she  said,  and  retorted  that  he  himself  must  be  very 
wicked  and  perverted,  to  suppose  evil  designs,  where  she 
was  sure  none  were  meant.     "And  this  is  the  good  meddlers 


HENRY   ESMOND  141 

get  of  interfering,"  Harry  thought  to  himself,  with  much 
bitterness :  and  his  perplexity  and  annoyance  were  only 
the  greater,  because  he  could  not  speak  to  my  Lord  Castle- 
wood  himself  upon  a  subject  of  this  nature,  or  venture  to 
advise  or  warn  him  regarchng  a  matter  so  very  sacred  as  5 
his  own  honour,  of  which  my  lord  was  naturally  the  best 
guardian. 

But  though  Lady  Castlewood  would  listen  to  no  advice 
from  her  young  dependent,  and  appeared  indignantly  to  re- 
fuse it  when  offered,  Harry  had  the  satisfaction  to  find  that  jc 
she  adopted  the  counsel  which  she  professed  to  reject ; 
for  the  next  day  she  pleaded  a  headache,  when  my  Lord 
IMohun  would  have  had  her  drive  out,  and  the  next  day  the 
headache  continued;  and  next  day,  in  a  laughing  gay 
way  she  proposed  that  the  children  should  take  her  place  in  15 
his  lordship's  car,°  for  they  would  be  charmed  with  a  ride  of 
all  things;  and  she  must  not  have  all  the  pleasure  for  herself. 
My  lord  ga\^9  them  a  drive  with  a  very  good  grace,  though  I 
dare  say  with  rage  and  disappointment  inwardly  —  not  that 
his  heart  w^as  A'ery  seriously  engaged  in  his  designs  upon  this  20 
simple  lady ;  but  the  life  of  such  men  is  often  one  of  intrigue, 
and  they  can  no  more  go  through  the  day  without  a  woman 
to  pursue,  than  a  fox-hunter  without  his  sport  after  breakfast. 

Under  an  affected  carelessness  of  demeanour,  and  though 
there  was  no  outward  demonstration  of  doubt  upon  his  25 
patron's  part  since  the  quarrel  between  the  two  lords,  Harry 
yet  saw  that^Lord  Castlewood  was  watching  his  guest  very 
narrowly :  and  caught  signs  of  distrust  and  smothered  rage 
(as  Harry  thought)  which  foreboded  no  good.  On  the  point 
of  honour  Esmond  knew  how  touchy  his  patron  was :  and  30 
watched  him  almost  as  a  physician  watches  a  patient,  and 
it  seemed  to  him  that  this  one  was  slow  to  take  the  disease, 
though  he  could  not  throw  off  the  poison  when  once  it  had 
mingled  with  his  blood.  We  read  in  Shakespeare °  (whom 
the  wTiter  for  his  part  considers  to  be  far  beyond  ]\Ir.  Con-  35 
greve,°  Mr.  Dryden,°  or  any  of  the  wits  of  the  present  period) 
that  when  jealousy  is  once  declared,  nor  poppy  nor  man- 
dragora,  nor  all  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  East,  will  ever 
soothe  it  or  medicine  it  away. 


142  HENRY  .ESMOND 

In  fine,  the  symptoms  seemed  to  be  so  alarming  to  this 
young  physician  (who  indeed  young  as  he  was  had  felt  the 
kind  pulses  of  all  those  dear  kinsmen),  that  Harry  thought  it 
would  be  his  duty  to  warn  my  Lord  Mohun,  and  let  him  know 
5  that  his  designs  were  suspected  and  watched.  So  one  day 
when,  in  rather  a  pettish  humour,  his  lordship  had  sent  to 
Lady  Castlewood,  who  had  promised  to  drive  with  him,  and 
now  refused  to  come,  Harry  said  —  ''My  lord,  if  you  will 
kindly  give  me  a  place  by  your  side  I  will  thank  you ;  I  have 
10  much  to  say  to  you,  and  would  like  to  sp.eak  to  you  alone." 

"  You  honour  me  by  giving  me  your  confidence,  ]\Tr.  Henry 
Esmond,''  says  the  other,  with  a  ^'er^^  grand  bow.  I\Iy  lord 
was  always  a  fine  gentleman,  and  young  as  he  was  there  was 
that  in  Esmond's  manner  which  showed  that  he  was  a  gentle- 
15  man  too,  and  that  none  might  take  a  liberty  with  him  — 
so  the  pair  went  out,  and  mounted  the  little  carriage  which 
was  in  waiting  for  them  in  the  court,  with  its  two  httle  cream- 
coloured  Hanoverian  horses  covered  with  splendid  furniture^ 
and  champing  at  the  bit. 
20  *'My  lord,"  says  Harry  Esmond,  after  they  were  got  into 
the  country,  and  pointing  to  my  Lord  Mohun 's  foot,  which 
was  swathed  in  flannel,  and  put  up  rather  ostentatiously  on 
a  cushion  —  "my  lord,  I  stuched  medicine  at  Cambricfge.''' 

"Lideed,  Parson  Harry,"  says  he  :   "and  are  you  going  to 
25  take  out  a  diploma:  and  cure  your  fellow-students  of  the — " 

"Of  the  gout,"  says  Harry,  interrupting  him,  and  looking 
him  hard  in  the  face,  "I  know  a  good  deal  about  the  gout." 

"I  hope  you  may  never  have  it.     'Tis  an  infernal  disease," 
says  my  lord,  "and  its  twinges  are  diabolical.     Ah!"  and 
30  he  made  a  dreadful  wry  face,  as  if  he  just  felt  a  twinge. 

"Your  lordship  would  be  much  better  if  you  took  off  all 
that  flannel  —  it  only  serves  to  inflame  the  toe, "  Harry 
continued,  looking  his  man  full  in  the  face. 

"Oh !  it  only  serves  to  inflame  the  toe,  does  it?"  says  the 
-t^  other,  with  an  innocent  air. 

"  If  you  took  off  that  flannel,  and  flung  that  absurd  slipper 
away  and  wore  a  boot,"  continues  Harry. 

"You  recommend  me  boots,  Mr.  Esmond?"  asks  my  lord. 

"Yes,  boots  and  spurs.     I  saw  your  lordship  three  days 


HENRY  ESMOND  143 

ago  run  down  the  gallery  fast  enough,"  Harry  goes  on.  "I 
am  sure  that  taking  gruel  at  night  is  not  so  pleasant  as  claret 
to  your  lordship  ;  and  besides  it  keeps  your  lordship's  head  cool 
for  play,  whilst  my  patron's  is  hot  and  flustered  with  drink/' 

''  'Sdeath,  sir,  you  dare  not  say  that  I  don't  play  fair  ?  "  cries  5 
my  lord,  whipping  his  horses,  which  went  away  at  a  gallop. 

"You  are  cool  when  my  lord  is  drunk,"  Harry  continued: 
''3'our  lordship  gets  the  better  of  my  patron.  I  have  watched 
you  as  I  looked  up  from  my  books." 

"You  young  Argus° !"  says  Lord  Mohun,  who  liked  Harry  la 
Esmond,  —  and  for  whose   company  and  wit,  and  a  certain 
daring  manner,  Harry  had  a  great  liking  too  —  "You  young 
Argus !  you  may  look  wiih  all  your  hundred  eyes  and  see  we 
play  fair.     I've  played  away  an  estate  of  a  night,  and  I've 
played  my  shirt  off  my  back;    and  I've  played  away  my  15 
perriwig  and  gone  home  in  a  nightcap.     But  no  man  can  say 
I  ever  took  an  advantage  of  him  beyond  the  advantage  of  the 
game.     I  played  a  dice-cogging  scoundrel  in  Alsatia  for  his 
ears  and  won  'em,  and  have  one  of  'em  in  my  lodging  in  Bow 
Street  in  a  bottle  of  spirits.     Harry  Mohun  will  play  any  man  20 
for  anything  —  always  would." 

"You  are  playing  awful  stakes,  my  lord,  in  my  patron's 
house,"  Harry  said,  "and  more  games  than  are  on  the  cards." 

"What  do  you  mean,  sir?"  cries  my  lord,  turning  round, 
with  a  flush  on  his  face.  25 

"I  mean,"  answers  Harry  in  a  sarcastick  tone,  "that 
your  gout  is  well  —  if  ever  you  had  it." 

"Sir!"  cries  my  lord,  getting  hot. 

"  And  to  tell  the  truth  I  believe  your  lordship  has  no  more 
gout  than  I  have.     At  any  rate,  change  of  air  will  do  you  30 
good,  my  Lord  Mohun.     And   I  mean  fairly  that  you  had 
better  go  from  Castle  wood." 

"xVnd  w^ere  you  appointed  to  give  me  this  message?" 
cries  the  Lord  Mohun.  "Did  Frank  Esmond  commission 
you?"  ^  2^ 

"No  one  did.  'Twas  the  honour  of  my  family  that  com- 
missioned me." 

"And  you  are  prepared  to  answer  this?"  cries  the  other, 
furiously  lashing  his  horses. 


144  HENRY  ESMOND 

*''  Quite,  my  lord :  your  lordship  will  upset  the  carriage  i\ 
you  whip  so  hotly." 

''By  George,  you  have  a  brave  spirit !"  my  lord  cried  out, 
bursting  into  a  laugh.     "I  suppose  'tis  that  infernal  hoiU 

5  de  Jesuite'^  that  makes  you  so  bold,"  he  added. 

"Tis  the  peace  of  the  family  I  love  best  in  the  world," 
Harry  Esmond  said  warmly  —  "  'tis  the  honour  of  a  noble 
benefactor  —  the  happiness  of  my  dear  mistress  and  her 
children.     I  owe  them  everything  in  life,  my  lord  :  and  would 

10  lay  it  down  for  any  one  of  them.  What  brings  you  here  to 
disturb  this  quiet  household?  What  keeps  you  lingering 
month  after  month  in  the  country?  What  makes  you 
feign  illness  and  invent  pretexts  for  delay?  Is  it  to  win  my 
poor  patron's  money?     Be  generous,  my  lord,  and  spare  his 

15  weakness  for  the  sake  of  his  wife  and  children.  Is  it  to 
practise  upon  the  simple  heart  of  a  virtuous  lady?  You 
might  as  well  storm  the  Tower  s'ngle-handed.  But  you  may 
blemish  her  name  by  light  comments  on  it  or  by  lawless 
pursuits  —  and  I  don't  deny  that  'tis  in  your  power  to  make 

20  her  unhappy.  Spare  these  innocent  people  and  leave 
them." 

**By  the  Lord,  I  believe  thou  hast  an  eye  to  the  pretty 
Puritan  thyself.  Master  Harry,"  says  my  lord,  with  his 
reckless,  good-humoured  laugh,  and  as  if  he  had  been  hstening 

25  with  interest  to  the  passionate  appeal  of  the  young  man. 

"Whisper,    Harry.     Art    thou    in    love    with    her    thyself? 

Hath  tipsy  Frank  Esmond  come  by  the  way  of  all  flesh?" 

"My  lord,  my  lord,"  cried  Harry,  his  face  flushing  and  his 

eyes  fiUing  as  he  spoke,  "I  never  had  a  mother,  but  I  love 

30  this  lady  as  one.  I  worship  her  as  a  devotee  worships  a  saint. 
To  hear  her  name  sj^oken  lightly  seems  blasphemy  to  me. 
Would  you  dare  think  of  your  own  mother  so,  or  suffer  any 
one  so  to  speak  of  her  !  It  is  a  horror  to  me  to  fancy  that  any 
man  should  think  of  her  impurely.     I  implore  you,  I  beseech 

35  yf^'ij  tx)  leave  her.     Danger  will  come  out  of  it." 

"  Danger,  psha!"  says  my  lord,  giving  a  cut  to  the  horses, 
which  at  this  minute  —  for  we  were  got  on  to  the  Downs°  — 
fairly  ran  off  into  a  gaflop  that  no  puHing  could  stop.  The 
rein  broke  in  Lord  Mohun's  hands,  and  the  furious  beasts 


HENRY  ESMOND  145 

scampered  madly  forwards,  the  carriage  swaying  to  and  fro, 
and  the  persons  within  it  holding  on  to  the  sides  as  best 
they  might,  until,  seeing  a  great  ravine  before  them,  where 
an  upset  yvas  inevitable,  the  two  gentlemen  leapt  for  their 
lives,  each  out  of  his  side  of  the  chaise.  Harry  Esmond  5 
was  (\\x\t  for  a  fall  on  the  grass,  which  was  so  severe,  that  it 
stunned  him  for  a  minute;  but  he  got  up  presently  very 
sick,  and  bleeding  at  the  nose,  but  with  no  other  hurt.  The 
Lord  Mohun  was  not  so  fortunate ;  he  fell  on  his  head  against 
a  stone,  and  lay  on  the  ground  dead  to  all  appearance.  la 

This  misadventure  happened  as  the  gentlemen  were  on 
their  return  homewards ;  and  my  Lord  Castlewood,  with  his 
son  and  daughter,  who  were  going  out  for  a  ride,  met  the 
ponies  as  they  were  galloping  with  the  car  behind,  the  broken 
traces  entangling  their  heels,  and  my  lord's  people  turned  15 
and  stopped  them.  It  was  young  Frank  who  spied  out  Lord 
Mohun 's  scarlet  coat  as  he  lay  on  the  ground,  and  the  party 
made  up  to  that  unfortunate  gentleman  ancl  Esmond,  who 
was  now  standing  over  him.  His  large  perriwig  and  feathered 
hat  had  fallen  off,  and  he  was  bleeding  profusely  from  a  wound  20 
on  the  forehead,  and  looking,  and  being,  indeed,  a  corpse. 

"Great  God!  he's  dead!"  says  my  lord.  "Ride,  some 
one  :  fetch  a  doctor  —  stay.  I'll  go  home  and  bring  back 
Tusher;  he  knows  surgery,"  and  my  lord,  with  his  son  after 
him,  galloped  away.  ^  25 

They  were  scarce  gone  when  Harry  Esmond,  who  was, 
indeed,  but  just  come  to  himself,  bethought  him  of  a  similar 
accident  which  he  had  seen  on  a  ride  from  iSewmarket  to 
Cambridge,  and  taking  off  a  sleeve  of  my  lord's  coat, 
Harry,  with  a  penknife,  opened  a  vein  in  his  arm,  and  was  3° 
greatly  reheved,  after  a  moment,  to  see  the  blood  flow. 
He  was  near  half  an  hour  before  he  came  to  himself,  by 
which  time  Doctor  Tusher  and  Httle  Frank  arrived,  and 
found  my  lord  not  a  corpse  indeed,  but  as  pale  as  one. 

After  a  time,  and  when  he  was  able  to  bear  motion,  they  35 
put  my  lord  upon  a  groom's  horse,  and  gave  the  other  to 
Esmond,  the  men  walking  on  each  side  of  my  lord,  to  support 
him,  if  need  were,  and  worthy  Doctor  Tusher  with  them. 
Little  Frank  and  Harry  rode  together  at  a  foot  pace. 


146  HENRY  ESMOND 

When  we  rode  together  home,  the  boy  said:  "We  met 
mamma,  who  was  walking  on  the  terrace  with  the  Doctor, 
and  papa  frightened  her,  and  told  her  you  were  dead  — '' 
''That  I  was  dead? ''asks  Harry. 
5  "Yes.  Papa  says:  'Here's  poor  Harry  killed,  my  dear;' 
on  which  mamma  gives  a  great  scream,  and  oh,  Harry !  she 
drops  down;  and  I  thought  she  was  dead,  too.  And  you 
never  saw  such  a  way  as  papa  was  in :  he  swore  one  of  his 
great  oaths;   and  he  turned  quite  pale;    and  then  he  began 

10  to  laugh  somehow,  and  he  told  the  Doctor  to  take  his  horse, 
and  me  to  follow  him ;  and  we  left  him.  And  I  looked 
back,  and  saw  him  dashing  water  out  of  the  fountain  on  to 
mamma.     Oh,  she  w^as  so  frightened  ! " 

Musing  upon  this  curious  history  —  for  my  Lord  Mohun's 

15  name  was  Henry  too,  and  they  called  each  other  Frank  and 
Harry  often  —  and  not  a  little  disturbed  and  anxious, 
Esmond  rode  home.  His  dear  lady  was  on  the  terrace  still, 
one  of  her  women  with  her,  and  my  lord  no  longer  there. 
There  are  steps  and  a  little  door  thence  down  into  the  road. 

20  My  lord  passed,  looking  very  ghastly,  with  a  handkerchief 
over  his  head,  and  without  his  hat  and  perriwig,  which  a 
groom  carried,  but  his  politeness  did  not  desert  him,  and 
he  made  a  bow  to  the  lady  above. 

"Thank  Heaven  you  are  safe,"  she  said. 

25  "And  so  is  Harry,  too,  mamma,"  says  little  Frank, 
"huzzay !" 

Harry  Esmond  got  off  the  horse  to  run  to  his  mistress,  as 
did  little  Frank,  and  one  of  the  grooms  took  charge  of  the 
two  beasts,  while  the  other,  hat  and  perriwig  in  hand,  walked 

30  Ijy  my  lord's  bridle  to  the  front  gate,  which  lay  half  a  mile 
away. 

"Oh,  my  boy!  what  a  fright  3^ou  have  given  me!"  Lady 
Castlewood  said,  when  Harry  Esmond  came  up,  greeting 
him  with  one  of  her  shining  looks,  and  a  voice  of  tender 

35  welcome ;  and  she  was  so  kind  as  to  kiss  the  young  man  ('twas 
the  second  time  she  had  so  honoured  him),  and  she  walked 
into  the  house  between  him  and  her  son,  holding  a  hand  of 
each. 


HENRY   ESMOND  147 

CHAPTER    XIV 

WE   RIDE   AFTER   HIM   TO   LONDON 

After  a  repose  of  a  couple  of  days,  the  Lord  Mohun  was  so 
far  recovered  of  his  hurt  as  to  be  able  to  announce  his  depart- 
ure for  the  next  morning :  when,  accordingly,  he  took  leave 
of  Castlewood,  proposing  to  ride  to  London  by  easy  stages, 
and  lie  two  nights  upon  the  road.  His  host  treated  him  with  5 
a  studied  and  ceremonious  courtesy,  certainly  different 
from  my  lord's  usual  frank  and  careless  demeanour;  but 
there  was  no  reason  to  suppose  that  the  two  lords  parted 
otherwise  than  good  friends,  though  Harry  Esmond  remarked 
that  my  Lord  Viscount  only  saw  his  guest  in  company  of  iQ 
other  persons,  and  seemed  to  avoid  being  alone  with  him. 
Nor  did  he  ride  any  distance  with  Lord  Mohun,  as  his  custom 
was  with  most  of  his  friends,  whom  he  was  always  eager  to 
welcome  and  unwilHng  to  lose :  but  contented  himself, 
when  his  lordship's  horses  were  announced,  and  their  owner  15 
appeared  booted  for  his  journey,  to  take  a  courteous  leave 
of  the  ladies  of  Castlewood,  l)y  following  the  Lord  IMohun 
down  stairs  to  his  horses,  and  by  bowing  and  wishing  him  a  good- 
day  in  the  courtyard.  "I  shall  see  you  in  London  before 
very  long,  Mohun,"  my  lord  said,  with  a  smile:  "when  we  20 
will  settle  our  accounts  together." 

"Do  iiot  let  them  trouble  you,   Frank,"  said   the  other 
good-naturedly,  and  holding  out  his  hand  looking  rather  sur- 
prised at  the  grim  and    stately  manner  in  which  his  host 
received   his   parting    salutation :    and   so,  followed   by  his  25 
people,  he  rode  away. 

Harry  Esmond  was  witness  of  the  departure.  It  was  very 
different  to  my  lord's  coming,  for  which  great  preparation 
had  been  made  (the  old  house  putting  on  its  best  appearance 
to  welcome  its  guest),  and  there  was  a  sadness  and  con-  3° 
straint  about  all  persons  that  day,  which  filled  ]\Ir.  Esmond 
with  gloomy  foreboding,  and  sad  indefinite  apprehensions. 
Lord  Castlewood  stood  at  the  door  watching  his  guest  and 
his  people  as  they  went  out  under  the  arch  of  the  outer  gate. 


148  HENRY   ESMOND 

Wh^n  he  was  there,  Lord  Mohun  turned  once  more,  u\\ 
Lord  Viscount  slowly  raised  his  beaver°  and  bowed.  His  face 
wore  a  peculiar  livid  look,  Harry  thought.  He  cursed  and 
kicked  away  his  dogs,  which  came  jumping  about  him  — 
5  then  he  walked  up  to  the  fountain  in  the  centre  of  the  court, 
and  leaned  against  a  pillar  and  looked  into  the  basin.  As 
Esmond  crossed  over  to  his  own  room,  late  the  Chaplain's,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  court,  and  turned  to  enter  in  at  the 
low   door,   he   saw   Lady   Castlewood  looking   through  the 

lo  curtains  of  the  great  window  of  the  drawing-room  overhead 
at  my  lord  as  he  stood  regarding  the  fountain.  There  was 
in  the  court  a  peculiar  silence  somehow:  and  the  scene 
remained  long  in  Esmond's  memor}?- :  —  the  sky  bright 
overhead :  the  buttresses  of  the  building,  and  the  sun-dial 

15  casting  shadow  over  the  gilt  memento  mori°  inscribed  under- 
neath; the  two  dogs,  a  black  greyhound  and  a  spaniel 
nearly  white,  the  one  with  his  face  up  to  the  sun,  and  the 
other  snuffing  amongst  the  grass  and  stones,  and  my  lord 
leaning   over    the    fountain,    which    was    plashing    audibly. 

20  'Tis  strange  how  that  scene,  and  the  sound  of  that  fountain, 
remain  fixed  on  the  memory  of  a  man  who  has  beheld  a 
hundred  sights  of  splendour,  and  danger  too,  of  which  he 
has  kept  no  account. 

It  was  Lady  Castlewood  —  she  had  been  laughing  all  the 

25  morning,  and  especially  gay  and  lively  before  her  husband 
and  his  guest  —  who,  as  soon  as  the  two  gentlemen  went  to- 
gether from  her  room,  ran  to  Harry,  the  expression  of  her 
countenance  quite  changed  now,  and  with  a  face  and  eyes 
full   of   care,  and   said,   "Follow   them,  Harry,  I   am   sure 

30  something  has  gone  wrong.''  And  so  it  was  that  Esmond 
was  made  an  eaves-dropper  at  this  lady's  orders:  and 
retired  to  his  own  chamber,  to  give  himself  time  in  truth  to 
try  and  compose  a  story  which  would  soothe  his  mistress, 
for  he  could  not  but  have  his  own  apprehension  that  some 

35  serious   f}uarrel   was  pending  between   the   two   gentlemen. 
And  now  for  several  days  the  little  company  at  Castle- 
wood sate  at  table  as  of  evenings :  this  care,  though  unnamed 
and  visible,  b(>ing  nevertheless  present  alway,  in  the  minds 
of  at  least   three   persons  there.     My  lord   was  exceeding 


HENRY   ESMOND  149 

gentle  and  kind.  Whenever  he  quitted  the  room,  his  wife's 
eyes  followed  him.  He  behaved  to  her  with  a  kind  of 
mournful  courtesy  and  kindness  remarkable  in  one  of  his 
buint  ways  and  ordinarily  rough  manner.  He  called  her 
by  her  Christian  name  often  and  fondly,  was  very  soft  and  5 
gentle  with  the  children,  especially  with  the  boy,  whom  he 
did  not  love.  And  being  lax  about  church  generally,  he 
went  thither  and  performed  all  the  offices  (down  even  to 
Mstening  to  Doctor  Tusher's  sermon)   with  great  devotion. 

"He  paces  his  room  all  night:    what  is  it?     Henry,  find  la 
out  what  it  is,"  Lady  Castlewood  said   constantly  to  her 
voung  dependent.     "He  has  sent  three  letters  to  London,'' 
she  said^  another  day. 

"Indeed,  madam,  they  were  to  a  lawyer,"  Harry  answered, 
who  knew  of  these  letters  and  had  seen  a  part  of  the  cor-  15 
respondence,  which  related  to  a  new  loan  my  lord  was 
raising:  and  when,  the  young  man  remonstrated  with  his 
pal;ron,  my  lord  said  "he  was  only  raising  money  to  pay 
ofT  an  old  debt  on  the  property  which  must  be  discharged." 

Regarding  the  money,  Lady  Castlewood  was  not  in  the  20 
least  anxious.  Few  foncl  women  feel  money-distress ;  indeed 
you  can  hardly  give  a  woman  a  greater  pleasure  than  to 
bid  her  pawn  her  diamonds  for  the  man  she  loves :  and  I 
remember  hearing  Mr.  Congreve  say  of  my  Lord  Marlbor- 
ough, that  the  reason  why  my  lord  was  so  successful  with  25 
women  as  a  young  man  was,  because  he  took  money  of 
them.  "There  are  few  men  who  will  make  such  a  sacrifice 
for  them,"  says  Mr.  Congreve,  who  knew  a  part  of  the  sex 
pretty  well. 

Harry  Esmond's  vacation  was  just  over,  and,  as  hath  30 
been  said,  he  was  preparing  to  return  to  the  university  for 
his  last  termi  before  taking  his  degree  and  entering  into  the 
church.  He  had  made  up  his  mind  for  this  office,  not  indeed 
with  that  reverence  which  becomes  a  man  about  to  enter 
upon  a  duty  so  holy,  but  with  a  worldly  spirit  of  acquies-  35 
cence.in  the  prudence  of  adopting  that  profession  for  liis 
calling.  But  his  reasoning  was  that  he  owed  all  to  the  family 
of  Castlewood,  and  loved  better  to  be  near  them  than  any- 
where else  in  the  world;    that  he  might  be  useful  to   his 


150  HENRY   ESMOND 

benefactors,  who  had  the  utmost  confidence  in  him  and 
affection  for  him  in  return;  that  he  might  aid  in  bringing 
up  the  young  heir  of  the  house  and  acting  as  his  governor; 
that  he  might  continue  to  be  his  dear  patron  s  and  mistress's 
5  friend  and  adviser,  who  both  were  pleased  to  say  that  they 
should  ever  look  upon  him  as  such :  and  so,  by  making  him- 
self useful  to  those  he  loved  best,  he  proposed  to  console 
himself  for  giving  up  of  any  schemes  of  ambition  which  he 
might   have   had  in  his   own   bosom.     Indeed,  his  mistress 

10  had  told  him  that  she  would  not  have  him  leave  her ;  and 
whatever  she  commanded  was  will  to  him. 

The  Lady  Castle  wood's  mind  was  greatly  reliev3d  in  the 
last  few  days  of  this  well-remembered  holyday  time,  oy 
my  lord's  announcing  one  morning,  after  the  post  had  brought 

15  him  letters  from  London,  in  a  careless  tone,  that  the  Lord 
Mohun  was  gone  to  Paris,  and  was  about  to  m^ke  a  great 
journey  in  Europe;  and  though  Lord  Castlewood's  own 
gloom  did  not  wear  off,  or  his  behaviour  alter,  yet  this  cause 
of  anxiety  being  removed  from  his  lady's  mind,  she  began 

20  to  be  more  hopeful  and  easy  in  her  spirits,  striving,  too, 
with  all  her  heart,  and  by  all  the  means  of  soothing  in  her 
power,  to  call  back  my  lord's  cheerfulness  and  dissipate 
his  moody  humour. 

He  accounted  for  it  himself,  by  saying  that  he  was  out  of 

25  health  ;  that  he  wanted  to  see  his  physician  ;  that  he  would  go 
to  London,  and  consult  Doctor  Cheyne.°  It  was  agreed 
that  his  lordship  and  Harry  Esmond  should  make  the  journey 
as  far  as  London  together;  and  of  a  IMonday  morning,  the 
10th  of  October,  in  the  year  1700,  they  set  forwards  towards 

30  London  on  horseback.  The  day  before  being  Sunday,  and 
the  rain  pouring  down,  the  family  did  not  visit  church; 
and  at  night  my  lord  read  the  service  to  his  family,  very 
finely,  and  with  a  peculiar  sweetness  and  gravity,  —  speaking 
the  parting  benediction,  Harry  thought,  as  solemn  as  ever  he 

35  heard  it.  And  he  kissed  and  embraced  his  wife  and  children 
before  they  went  to  their  own  chambers  with  more  fondness 
than  he  was  ordinarily  wont  to  show,  and  with  a  solemnity 
and  feeling,  of  which  they  thought  in  after  days  with  no 
small  comfort. 


HENRY   ESMOND  151 

They  took  horse  the  next  morning  (after  adieux  from  the 
family  as  tender  as  on  the  night  previous),  lay  that  night  on 
the  road,  and  entered  London  at  nightfall;  my  lord  going 
to  the  Trumpet,  in  the  Cockpit, °  ^^'hitehall,  an  house  used 
by  the  military  in  his  time  as  a  young  man,  and  accustomed  5 
by  his  lordship  ever  since. 

An  hour  after  my  lord's  arrival  (which  showed  that  his 
\asit  had  been  arranged  beforehand),  my  lord's  man  of  busi- 
ness arrived  from  Gray's  Inn° ;  and  thinking  that  his  patron 
might  wish  to  be  private  with  the  lawyer,  Esmond  was  for  ic 
leaving  them:  but  my  lord  said  his  business  was  short;  in- 
troduced Mr.  Esmond  particularly  to  the  lawyer,  who  had 
been  engaged  for  the  family  in  the  old  lord's  time ;  w^ho  said 
that  he  had  paid  the  money,  as  desired  that  day,  to  my  Lord 
Mohun  himself,  at  his  lodgings  in  Bow^  Street;  that  his  lord-  15 
ship  had  expressed  some  surprise,  as  it  was  not  customary 
to  employ  lawyers,  he  said,  in  such  transactions  between  men 
of  honour;  but,  nevertheless,  he  had  returned  my  Lord 
Viscount's  note  of  hand,  which  he  held  at  his  client's  dis- 
position. 20 

"I  thought  the  Lord  Mohun  had  been  in  Paris !"  cried  Mr. 
Esmond,  in  great  alarm  and  astonishment. 

"He  is  come  back  at  my  invitation,"  said  my  Lord  Vis- 
count.    "We  have  accounts  to  settle  together." 

"I  pray  Heaven  they  are  over,  sir,"  says  Esmond.  25 

"Oh,  Cjuite,"  replied  the  other,  looking  hard  at  the  young 
man.  "He  v\-as  rather  troublesome  about  that  money  which 
I  told  you  I  had  lost  to  him  at  play.  And  now  'tis  paid,  and 
and  we  are  cjuits  on  that  score,  and  we  shall  meet  good  friends 
again."  30 

"  My  lord,"  cried  out  Esmond,  "  I  am  sure  you  ai'e  deceiving 
me,  and  that  there  is  a  quarrel  between  the  Lord  Mohun  and 
you." 

"Quarrel  —  pish!     We  shall  sup  together  this  very  night, 
and  drink  a  bottle.     Every  man  is  ill-humoured,  who  loses  35 
such  a  sum  as  I  have  lost.     But  now  'tis  paid,  and  my  anger 
is  gone  with  it." 

"Where  shall  we  sup,  sir?"  says  Harry. 

"  We!    Let  some  gentlemen  wait  till  they  are  asked,"  says 


152  HENRY  ESMOND 

my  Lord  Viscount,  with  a  laugh.  "You  go  to  Duke  Street, 
and  see  Mr.  Betterton.°  You  love  the  play,  I  know.  Leave 
me  to  follow  my  own  devices ;  and  in  the  morning  well 
breakfast  together,  with  what  appetite  we  may,  as  the  play 
5  says." 

**By  G — !  my  lord,  I  will  not  leave  you  this  night,''  says 
Harry  Esmond.  ''I  think  I  know  the  cause  of  your  dispute. 
I  swear  to  you  'tis  nothing.  On  the  very  day  the  accident 
befell  Lord  Mohun,  I  was  speaking  to  him  about  it.     I  know 

10  that  nothing  has  passed  but  idle  gallantry  on  his  part." 
''You  know  that  nothing  has  passed  but  idle  gallantry 
between  Lord  Mohun  and  my  wife,"  says  my  lord,  in  a  thun- 
dering voice  —  "3"ou  knew  of  this,  and  didn't  tell  me?" 
"  I  knew  more  of  it  than  my  dear  mistress  did  herself,  sir  — 

15  a  thousand  times  more.  How  was  she,  who  was  as  innocent  as 
a  child,  to  know  what  was  the  meaning  of  the  covert  addresses 
of  a  villain?" 

"A  villain  he  is,  you  allow,  and  would  have  taken  my  wife 
away  from  me." 

20      "Sir,  she  is  as  pure  as  an  angel,"  cried  young  Esmond. 

"Have  I  said  a  word  against  her?"  shrieks  out  my  lord. 

"  Did  I  ever  doubt  that  she  was  pure  ?     It  would  have  been  the 

last  day  of  her  life  when  I  did.     Do  you  fancy  I  think  that  she 

would  go  astray?     No,  she  hasn't  passion  enough  for  that. 

25  She  neither  sins  nor  forgives.  I  know  her  temper  —  and  nov/ 
I've  lost  her :  by  Heaven  I  love  her  ten  thousand  times 
more  than  ever  I  did  —  yes,  when  she  was  young  and  as 
beautiful  as  an  angel  —  when  she  smiled  at  me  in  her  old 
father's  house,  and  used  to  lie  in  wait  for  me  there  as  I  came 

30  from  hunting  —  when  I  used  to  fling  my  head  down  on  her 
little  knees  and  cry  like  a  child  on  her  lap  —  and  swear  I 
would  reform  and  tlrink  no  more,  and  play  no  more,  and  fol- 
low women  no  more ;  when  all  the  men  of  the  Court  used  to 
be  following  her  —  when  she  used  to  look  with   her  child 

35  rrion;  beautiful,  by  CJeorge,  than  the  Madonna  in  the  Queen's 
Chapel.  I  am  not  good  like  her,  I  know  it.  Who  is,  by 
Heaven,  who  is?  I  tired  and  wearied  her,  I  know  that  very 
well.  I  could  not  talk  to  her.  You  men  of  wit  and  books 
could  do  that  and   I  couldn't  —  I  felt  I  couldn't.      Why, 


HENRY   ESMOND  153 

when  you  was  but  a  boy  of  fifteen  I  could  hear  you  two 
together  talking  your  poetry  and  your  books  till  I  was  in 
such  a  rage  that  I  was  fit  to  strangle  you.  But  you  were 
always  a  good  lad,  Harry,  and  I  loved  you,  you  know  I  did. 
And  I  felt  she  didn't  belong  to  me :  and  the  children  don't.  5 
And  I  besotted  myself,  and  gambled,  and  drank,  and  took  to 
all  sorts  of  devilries  out  of  despair  and  fury.  And  now 
comes  this  Mohun,  and  she  likes  him,  I  know  she  likes  him." 

''  Indeed,  and  on  my  soul,  you  are  wrong,  sir,"  Esmond  cried. 

'SShe  takes  letters  from  him,"  cries  my  lord  —  "look  here,  lo 
Harry,"  and  he  pulled  out  a  paper  with  a  brown  stain  of 
blood  upon  it.     ''It  fell  from  him  that  day  he  wasn't  killed. 
One  of  the  grooms  picked  it  up  from  the  ground  and  gave  it 

me.     Here  it  is    in  their   d d  comedy  jargon.     'Divine 

Gloriana  —  Why  look  so  coldly  on  3'our  slave  who  adores  15 
you?     Have  you  no  compassion  on  the  tortures  you  have 
seen  me  suffering?     Do  you  vouchsafe  no  reply  to  billets 
that  are  written  with  the  blood  of  my  heart  V     She  had  more 
letters  from  him." 

"But  she  answered  none,"  cried  Esmond.  20 

"That's  not  Mohun 's  fault,"  says  my  lord,  "and  I  will 
be  revenged  on  him,  as  God's  in  Heaven,  I  will." 

"For  a  hght  word  or  two,  will  you  risk  your  lady's  honour 
and  your  family's  happiness,  my  lord?"  Esmond  interjDosed 
beseechingly.  25 

"Psha  —  there  shall  be  no  question  of  my  wn^e's  honour." 
said  my  lord;  "we  can  quarrel  on  plenty  of  grounds  beside. 
If  I  live,  that  villain  will  be  punished  :  if  I  fall,  my  family  will 
be  only  the  better :  there  will  only  be  a  spendthrift  the  less 
to  keep  in  the  world  :  and  Frank  has  better  teaching  than  his  3° 
father.  My  mind  is  made  up,  Harry  Esmond,  and  whatever 
ihe  event  is  I  am  easy  about  it.  I  leave  my  wife  and  you 
as  guardians  to  the  children." 

Seeing  that  my  lord  was  bent  upon  pursuing  this  quarrel, 
and  that  no  entreaties  would  draw  him  from  it,  Harry  Es-  35 
mond  (then  of  a  hotter  and  more  impetuous  nature  than  now, 
when  care  and  reflection,  and  grey  hairs  have  calmed  him) 
thought  it  was  his  duty  to  stand  by  his  kind  generous  patron, 
and  said,  —  "^ly  lord,  if  you  are  determined  upon  war,  you 


154  HENRY  ESMOND 

must  not  go  into  it  alone.  Tis  the  duty  of  our  house  tA 
stand  by  its  chief:  and  I  should  neither  forgive  myself  nor 
you  if  you  did  not  call  me,  or  I  should  be  absent  from  you  at 
a  moment  of  danger." 

5  "Why,  Harry,  my  poor  boy,  you  are  bred  for  a  parson,'' 
says  my  lord,  taking  Esmond  by  the  hand  very  kindly :  ''  and 
it  were  a  great  pity  that  you  should  meddle  in  the  matter." 
"  Your  lordship  thought  of  being  a  churchman,  once," 
Harry  answered,  "and  your  father's  orders  did  not  prevent 

10  him  fighting  at  Castlewood  against  the  Roundheads.  Your 
enemies  are  mine,  sir :  I  can  use  the  foils,  as  you  have  seen, 
indifferently  well,  and  don't  think  I  shall  be  afraid  when  the 
buttons  are  taken  off°  'em."  And  then  Harry  explained, 
with  some  blushes  and  hesitation  (for  the  matter  was  delicate, 

15  and  he  feared  lest,  by  having  put  himself  forward  in  the 
quarrel,  he  might  have  offended,  his  patron),  how  he  had  him- 
self expostulated  with  the  Lord  Mohun,  and  proposed  to 
measure  swords  with  him  if  need  were,  and  he  could  not  be 
got  to  withdraw  peaceably  in  this  dispute.     "And  I  should 

20  have  beat  him,  sir,"  says  Harry,  laughing.  "He  never 
could  parry  that  hotte°  I  brought  from  Cambridge.  Let  us 
have  half  an  hour  of  it,  and  rehearse  —  I  can  teach  it  your 
lordship :  'tis  the  most  delicate  point  in  the  world,  and  if 
you  miss  it  —  your  adversary's  sword  is  through  you." 

25  "By  George,  Harry!  you  ought  to  be  the  head  of  the 
house,"  says  my  lo^d,  gloomily.  "You  had  been  better 
Lord  Castlewood  than  a  lazy  sot  like  me,"  he  added,  drawing 
his  hand  across  his  eyes,  and  surveying  his  kinsman  with 
very  kind  affectionate  glances. 

30  "  Let  us  take  our  coats  off  and  have  half  an  hour's  practice 
Ix'fore  nightfall,"  says  Harry,  after  thankfully  grasping  his 
patron's  manly  hand. 

"You  are  but  a  little  bit  of  a  lad,"  says  my  lord,  good- 
humouredly;   "but  in  faith,  I  believe  you  could  do  for  that 

35  fellow.     No,   my  boy,"  he  continued.     "I'll  have  none  of 
your  feints  and  tricks  of  stabl)ing :  I  can  use  my  sword  pretty 
well  too,  and  will  fight  my  own  quarrel  my  own  way." 
"But  I  shall  be  by  to  see  fair  play,"  cries  Harry. 
"Yes,  Cod  bless  you  —  you  shall  be  by." 


HENRY   ESMOND  155 

•'When  is  it,  sir?"  says  Harry,  for  he  saw  that  the  matter 
had  been  arranged  privately,  and  beforehand,  by  my  lord. 

"  Tis  arranged  thus :  I  sent  off  a  courier  to  Jack  Westbury 
to  say  that  I  wanted  him  specially.  He  knows  for  what, 
and  will  be  here  presently,  and  drink  part  of  that  bottle  of  5 
sack.  Then  we  shall  go  to  the  theatre  in  Duke  Street, 
where  we  shall  meet  Mohun ;  and  then  we  shall  all  go  sup 
at  the  Rose  or  the  Greyhound.  Then  we  shall  call  for  cards, 
and  there  will  be  probably  a  difference  over  the  cards  —  and 
then,  God  help  us  !  —  either  a  wicked  villain  and  traitor  shall  la 
go  out  of  the  world,  or  a  poor  worthless  devil,  that  doesn't 
care  to  remain  in  it.  I  am  better  away,  Hal,  —  my  wife 
will  be  all  the  happier  when  I  am  gone,"  says  my  lord,  with  a 
groan,  that  tore  the  heart  of  Harry  Esmond  so  that  he  fairly 
broke  into  a  sob  over  his  patron's  kind  hand.  15 

"The  business  was  talked  over  with  Mohun  before  he  left 
home  —  Castlewood  I  mean"  —  my  lord  went  on.  *'I  took 
the  letter  in  to  him,  which  I  had  read,  and  I  charged  him 
with  his  villainy,  and  he  could  make  no  denial  of  it,  only  he 
said  that  my  wife  was  innocent."  20 

"And  so  she  is;  before  Heaven,  my  lord,  she  is!"  cries 
Harry. 

"A'o  doubt,  no  doubt.  They  always  are,"  says  my  lord. 
"No  doubt,  when  she  heard  he  was  killed,  she  fainted  from 
accident."  25 

"But,  my  lord,  my  name  is  Harry,"  cried  out  Esmond, 
burning  red.-  "You   told   my  lady,   'Harry  was  killed!'" 

"Damnation!  shall  I  fight  you,  too?"  shouts  my  lord, 
in  a  fury.  "Are  you,  you  little  serpent,  warmed  by  my  fire, 
going  to  sting  —  you ?  —  No,  my  boy,  you're  an  honest  boy;  30 
you  are  a  good  boy."  (And  here  he  broke  from  rage  into 
tears  even  more  cruel  to  see.)  "You  are  an  honest  boy,  and 
1  love  you ;  and,  by  heavens,  I  am  so  wretched  that  I  don't 
care  what  sword  it  is  that  ends  me.  Stop,  here's  Jack  West- 
bury. °  Well,  Jack !  Welcome,  old  boy !  This  is  my  kins-  35 
man,  Harry  Esmond." 

"Who  brought  your  bowls  for  you  at  Castlewood,  sir!" 
says  Harry,  bowing :  and  the  three  gentlemen  sate  down  and 
drank  of  that  bottle  of  sack  which  was  prepared  for  them. 


156  HENRY   ESMOND 

"Harry  is  number  three,"  says  my  lord.  "You  needn't  hi 
afraid  of  him,  Jack."  And  the  Colonel  gave  a  look,  as  much 
as  to  say,  ''Indeed,  he  don't  look  as  if  I  need."  And  then 
my  lord  explained  what  he  had  only  told  b}^  hints  before. 
5  When  he  quarrelled  with  Lord  Mohun  he  was  indebted  to  his 
lordship  in  a  sum  of  sixteen  hundred  pounds,  for  which  Lord 
Mohun  said  he  proposed  to  wait  until  my  Lord  Viscount 
should  pay  him.  My  lord  had  raised  the  sixteen  hundred 
pounds  and  sent  them  to  Lord  Mohun  that  morning,  and 

10  before  quitting  home  had  put  his  affairs  into  order,  and  was 
now  quite  ready  to  abide  the  issue  of  the  quarrel. 

When  we  had  drunk  a  couple  of  bottles  of  sack,  a  coach  was 
called,  and  the  three  gentlemen  went  to  the  Duke's  Play- 
house, as  agreed.     The  play  was  one  of  Mr.  Wycherley's  — 

15  Love  in  a  Wood° 

Harry  Esmond  has  thought  of  that  play  ever  since  with  a 
kind  of  terror,  and  of  Mrs.  Bracegirdle,°  the  actress  who  per- 
formed the  girl's  part  in  the  comedy.  She  was  disguised  as  a 
page,  and  came  and  stood  before  the  gentlemen  as  they  sate 

20  on  the  stage,  and  looked  over  her  shoulder  with  a  pair  of  arch 
black  eyes,  and  laughed  at  my  lord,  and  asked  what  ailed  the 
gentleman  from  the  country,  and  had  he  had  bad  news  from 
Bullock  Fair? 

Between  the  acts  of  the  play  the  gentlemen  crossed  over 

25  and  conversed  freely.  There  were  two  of  Lord  Mohun's 
party.  Captain  Macartney,"  in  a  military  habit,  and  a  gentle- 
man in  a  suit  of  blue  velvet  and  silver  in  a  fair  perriwig,  with 
a  rich  fall  of  point  of  Venice  lace  —  my  lord  the  Earl  of  War- 
wick and  Holland.     My  lord  had  a  paper  of  oranges,  which 

30  he  ate  and  offered  to  the  actresses,  joking  with  them.  And 
Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  when  my  Lord  Mohun  said  something  rude, 
turned  on  him,  and  asked  him  what  he  did  there,  and  whether 
he  and  liis  fiiends  had  come  to  stab  anybody  else  as  they  did 
poor  Will   M<)untford°?     My  lord's  dark  face  grew  darker 

35  at  this  taunt,  and  wore  a  mischievous  fatal  look.  They  that 
saw  it  remembered  it,  and  said  so  afterward. 

When  the  play  was  ended  the  two  parties  joined  company; 
and  my  Lord  Castlewood  then  proi)osed  that  they  should  go 
to  a  tavern  and  sup.     Lockit's,°  the  Cireyhound,  in  Charing 


HENRY   ESMOND  157 

Cross,  was  the  house  selected.  All  six  marched  together  that 
way;  the  three  lords  going  ahead,  Lord  IMohun's  captain,  and 
Colonel  Westbury,  and  Harry  Esmond,  walking  behind  them. 
As  they  walked,  Westbury  told  Harry  Esmond  about  his 
old  friend  Dick  the  Scholar,  who  had  got  promotion,  and  5 
was  Cornet  of  the  Guards,  and  had  wrote  a  book  called  the 
Christian  Hero° ;  and  had  all  the  Guards  to  laugh  at  him  for 
his  pains,  for  the  Christian  Hero  was  breaking  the  command- 
ments constantly,  Westbury  said,  and  had  fought  one  or  two 
duels  already.  And,  in  a  lower  tone,  Westbury  besought  ic 
young  ]\Ir.  Esmond  to  take  no  part  in  the  quarrel.  "  There  was 
no  need  for  more  seconds  than  one,"  said  the  Colonel,  "and 
the  Captain  or  Lord  Warwick  might  easily  withdraw."  But 
Harry  said  no ;  he  was  bent  on  going  through  with  the  busi- 
ness. Lideed,  he  had  a  plan  in  his  head,  which,  he  thought,  15 
might  prevent  my  Lord  Viscount  from  engaging. 

They  went  in  at  the  bar  of  the  tavern,  and  desired  a  private 
room  and  wine  and  cards,  and  when  the  drawer  had  brought 
these,  the}'  began  to  drink  and  called  healths,  and  as  long  as 
the  servants  were  in  the  room  appeared  very  friendly.  20 

Harry  Esmond's  plan  was  no  other  than  to  engage  in  talk 
with  Lord  Mohun,  to  insult  him,  and  so  get  the  first  of  the 
quarrel.  So  when  cards  were  proposed  he  offered  to  play. 
•'Psha,"  says  my  Lord  Mohun  (whether  wishing  to  save 
Harry,  or  not  choosing  to  try  the  hotte  de  Jesuite,  it  is  not  to  be  25 
known)  —  "Young  gentlemen  from  College  should  not  play 
these  stakes.     You  are  too  young." 

"Who  dares  say  I  am  too  young?"  broke  out  Harry.  "Is 
/our  lordship  afraid?" 

"Afraid!"  cries  out  Mohun.  ■      3c 

But  my  good  Lord  Viscount  saw  the  move  —  "I'll  play 
you  for  ten  moidores,°  Mohun,"  says  he  —  "You  silly  boy, 
we  don't  play  for  groats  here  as  you  do  at  Cambridge :"  and 
Harry  who  had  no  such  sum  in  his  pocket  (for  his  half-year's 
salary  was  always  pretty  well  spent  before  it  was  due)  fell  35 
back  with  rage  and  vexation  in  his  heart  that  he  had  not 
money  enough  to  stake. 

"I'll  stake  the  young  gentleman  a  crown,"  says  the  Lord 
Mohun '3  captain. 


158  HENRY   ESMOND 

"I  thought  crowns  were  rather  scarce  with  the  gentlemen 
of  the  army,"  says  Harry. 

"Do  they  birch  at  College?"  says  the  Captain. 

''They  birch  fools/'  says   Harry,  ''and  they  cane  bullies, 
5  and  they  fling  puppies  into  the  water." 

"Faith,  then,  there's  some  escapes  drowning,"  says  the 
Captain,  who  was  an  Irishman ;  and  all  the  gentlemen  began 
to  laugh,  and  made  poor  Harry  only  more  angry. 

]\Iy  Lord  Mohun  presently  snuffed  a  candle.     It  w^as  when 

10  the  drawers  brought  in  fresh  bottles  and  glasses  and  were  in 

the  room  —  on  which  my  Lord  Viscount  said  —  "The  Deuce 

take   you,  ]\Iohun,  how   damned  awkward  you  are !     Light 

the  candle,  you  drawer." 

"Damned  awkward  is  a  damned  awkward  expression,  my 
15  lord,"  says  the  other.     "Town  gentlemen  don't  use  such 
words  —  or  ask  pardon  if  they  do." 

"I'm  a  country  gentleman,"  says  my  Lord  Viscount. 

"I  see  it  by  your  manner,"  says  my  Lord  Mohun.     "No 
man  shall  say  damned  awkward  to  me." 
20      "I  fling  the  words  in  your  face,  my  lord,"  says  the  other; 
"shall  I  send  the  cards  too?" 

"Gentlemen,    gentlemen!     before    the    servants!"  —  cry 
out  Colonel  Westbury  and  the  Lord  Warwick  in  a  breath. 
The  drawers  go  out  of  the  room  hastily.     They  tell  the 
25  people  below  of  the  quarrel  upstairs. 

"Enough  has  been  said,"  says  Colonel  Westbury.  "Will 
your  lordships  meet  to-morrow  morning?" 

"Will  my  Lord  Castlewood  withdraw  his  words?"  asks  the 
Earl  of  Warwick. 

30      "My   Lord   Castlewood   will   be first,"   says   Colonel 

Westl)ury. 

"Then  we  have  nothing  for  it.     Take  notice,  gentlemen, 
there  have  been  outrageous  words  —  reparation  asked  and 
refused." 
35      "And  refused,"  says  my  Lord  Castlewood,  putting  on  his 
hat.     "Where  shall  the  meeting  be?    and  when?" 

"Since  my  lord  refuses  me  satisfaction,  which  I  deeply 
regret,  there  is  no  time  so  good  as  now,"  says  my  Lord 
Mohun.     "Let  us  have  chairs °  and  go  to  Leicester  Field. °" 


HENRY  ESMOND  159 

'^Are  your  lordship  and  I  to  have  the  honour  of  exchanging 
a  pass  or  two?''  says  Colonel  Westbury,  with  a  low  bow  to 
my  Lord  of  Warwick  and  Holland. 

*'It  is  an  honour  for  me/'  says  my  lord,  with  a  profound 
congee,  "to  be  matched  with  a  gentleman  who  has  been  at  5 
Mons  and  Namur." 

"Will  your  Reverence  permit  me  to  give  you  a  lesson?" 
says  the  Captain. 

"Nay,  nay,  gentlemen,  two  on  a  side  are  plenty,"  says 
Harry's    patron.     "Spare    the    boy,    Captain    Macartney,"  10 
and  he  shook  Harry's  hand  —  for  the  last  time,  save  one,  in 
his  life. 

At  the  bar  of  the  tavern  all  the  gentlemen  stopped  and  my 
Lord  Viscount  said,  laughing,  to  the  barwoman,  that  those 
cards  set  people  sadly  a-ciuarrelling ;  but  that  the  dispute  15 
was  over  now,  and  the  parties  were  all  going  away  to  my 
Lord  Mohun's  house,  in  Bow  Street,  to  drink  a  bottle  more 
before  going  to  bed. 

A  half-dozen  of  chairs  were  now  called,  and  the  six  gentle- 
men stepping  into  them,  the  word  was  privately  given  to  the  20 
chairmen  to  go  to  Leicester  Field,  where  the  gentlemen 
were  set  down  opposite  the  Standard  Tavern.  It  was  mid- 
night, and  the  town  was  a-bed  by  this  time,  and  only  a  few 
Ughts  in  the  windows  of  the  houses;  but  the  night  was 
bright  enough  for  the  unhappy  purpose  which  the  disputants  25 
came  about ;  and  so  all  six  entered  into  that  fatal  square,  the 
'^chairmen  standing  without  the  railing  and  keeping  the  gate, 
lest  any  persons  should  disturb  the  meeting. 

All  that  happened  there  hath  been  matter  of  publick 
notoriety,  and  is  recorded  for  warning  to  lawless  men,  in  the  3c 
annals  of  our  country.  After  being  engaged  for  not  more 
than  a  couple  of  minutes,  as  Harry  Esmond  thought  (though 
being  occupied  at  the  time  with  his  own  adversary's  point, 
which  was  active,  he  may  not  have  taken  a  good  note  of 
time),  a  cry  from  the  chairmen  without,  who  were  smoking  35 
their  pipes,  and  leaning  over  the  railings  of  the  field  as  they 
watched  the  dim  combat  within,  announced  that  some 
catastrophe  had  happened  which  caused  Esmond  to  drop 
his  sword  and  look  round,   at  which  moment   his  enemy 


160  HENRY   ESMOND 

wounded  him  in  the  right  hand.  But  the  young  man  did 
not  heed  this  hurt  much,  and  ran  up  to  the  place  where  he 
saw  his  dear  master  was  down. 

My  Lord  Mohun  was  standing  over  him. 
5      "Are  you  much  hurt,   Frank?"  he  asked,   in  a  hollow 
voice. 

"I  believe  I'm  a  dead  man, "my  lord  said  from  the  ground. 

"No,  no,  not  so,"  says  the  other;   "and  I  call  God  to  wit- 
ness, Frank  Esmond,  that  I  would  have  asked  your  pardon, 
lo  had  you  but  giviA  me  a  chance.     In  —  in  the  first  cause  of 
our  falling  out,  I  swear  that  no  one  was  to  blame  but  me, 
and  —  and  that  my  lady " 

"Hush!"  says  my  poor  Lord  Viscount,  lifting  himself  on 
his  elbow,  and  speaking  faintly.  "  Twas  a  dispute  about 
15  the  cards  —  the  cursed  cards.  Harry,  my  boy,  are  you 
wounded,  too  ?  God  help  thee !  I  loved  thee,  Harry,  and 
thou  must  watch  over  my  little  Frank  —  and  —  and  carry 
this  little  heart  to  my  wife." 

And  here  my  dear  lord  felt  in  his  breast  for  a  locket  he 
20  wore  there,  and,  in  the  act,  fell  back,  fainting. 

We  were  all  at  this  terrified,  thinking  him  dead ;  but 
Esmond  and  Colonel  Westbury  bade  the  chairmen  to  come 
into  the  field ;  and  so  my  lord  was  carried  to  one  Mr.  Aimes, 
a  surgeon,  in  Long  Acre,°  who  kept  a  bath,  and  there  the 
25  house  was  wakened  up,  and  the  victim  of  this  quarrel 
carried  in. 

My  Lord  Viscount  was  put  to  bed,  and  his  wound  looked 
to  by  the  surgeon,  who  seemed  both  kind  and  skilful.  When 
he  had  looked  to  my  lord,  he  bandaged  up  Harry  Esmond's 
30  hand  (who  from  loss  of  blood  had  fainted,  too,  in  the  house, 
and  may  have  been  some  time  unconscious) ;  and  when 
the  young  man  came  to  himself,  you  may  be  sure  he  eagerly 
asked  what  news  there  were  of  his  dear  patron ;  on  which 
the  surgeon  carried  him  to  the  room  where  the  Lord  Castle- 
35  wood  lay;  who  had  already  sent  for  a  priest;  and  desired 
earnestly,  they  said,  to  speak  with  his  kinsman.  He  was 
lying  on  a  bed,  very  pale  and  ghastly,  with  that  fixed,  fatal 
look  in  his  eyes,  wliich  betokens  death;  and  faintly  beckon- 
ing all  the  other  persons  away  from  him  with  his  hand,  and 


HENRY   ESMOND  161 

crying  out  "Only  Harry  Esmond,"  the  hand  fell  powerless 
down  on  the  coverlet,  as  Harry  came  forward,  and  knelt 
down  and  kissed  it. 

"Thou  art  all  but  a  priest,  Harry,''  my  Lord  Viscount 
gasped  out,  with  a  faint  smile,   and  pressure  of  his  cold  5 
hand.     "  Are  they  all  gone  ?     Let  me  make  thee  a  death-bed 
confession." 

And  with  sacred  Death  waiting,  as  it  were,  at  the  bed-foot, 
as  an  awful  witness  of  his  words,  the  poor  dying  soul  gasped 
out  his  last  wishes  in  respect  of  his  family ;  —  his  humble  10 
profession  of  contrition  for  his  faults ;  —  and  his  charity 
towards  the  world  he  was  leaving.  Some  things  he  said 
concerned  Harry  Esmond  as  much  as  they  astonished  him. 
And  my  Lord  Viscount  sinking  visibly,  was  in  the  midst  of 
these  strange  confessions,  when  the  ecclesiastick  for  whom  15 
my  lord  had  sent,  Mr.  Atterbury,°  arrived. 

This  gentleman  had  reached  to  no  great  church  dignity,  as 
yet,  but  was  only  preacher  at  St.  Bride's,  drawing  all  the 
town  thither  by  his  eloquent  sermons.  He  was  godson  to 
my  lord,  who  had  been  pupil  to  his  father ;  had  paid  a  visit  20 
to  Castlewood  from  Oxford  more  than  once;  and  it  was 
by  his  ad\dce,  I  think,  that  Harry  Esmond  was  sent  to 
Cambridge,  rather  than  to  Oxford,  of  which  place  Mr. 
Atterbury,  though  a  distinguished  member,   spoke  but  ill. 

Our  messenger  found  the  good  priest  already  at  his  books,  25 
at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning,   and  he  followed  the  man 
eagerly  to  the  house  where  my  poor  Lord  Viscount  lay,  — 
Esmond  watching  him,  and  taking  his  dying  words  from 
his  mouth. 

My  lord,  hearing  of  Mr.  Atterbury's  arrival,  and  squeezing  30 
Esmond's  hand,  asked  to  be  alone  with  the  priest;  and 
Esmond  left  them  there  for  this  solemn  interview.  You 
may  be  sure  that  his  own  prayers  and  grief  accompanied 
that  dying  benefactor.  My  lord  had  said  to  him  that  which 
confounded  the  young  man  —  informed  him  of  a  secret  35 
which  greatly  concerned  him.  Indeed,  after  hearing  it,  he 
had  had  good  cause  for  doubt  and  dismay;  for  mental 
anguish,  as  well  as  resolution.  While  the  colloquy  between 
Mr.  Atterbury  and  his  dying  penitent  took  place  within, 


162  HENRY   ESMOND 

an  immense  contest  of  perplexity  was  agitating  Lord  Castle- 
wood's  young  companion. 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  —  it  may  be  more  —  Mr.  Atterbury 
came  out  of  the  room,  looking  very  hard  at  Esmond,  and 
5  holding  a  paper. 

"He  is  on  the  brink  of  God's  awful  judgment,"  the  priest 
whispered.  "He  has  made  his  breast  clean  to  me.  He 
forgives  and  beUeves,  and  makes  restitution.  Shall  it  be  in 
publick?  Shall  we  call  a  witness  to  sign  it?" 
10  "God  knows,"  sobbed  out  the  young  man;  "my  dearest 
lord  has  only  done  me  kindness  all  his  life." 

The  priest  put  the  paper  into  Esmond's  hand.     He  looked 
at  it.     It  swam  before  his  eyes. 

"  'Tis  a  confession,"  he  said. 
15      "  'Tis  as  you  please,"  said  Mr.  Atterbury. 

There  was  a  fire  in  the  room,  where  the  cloths  were  drying 
for  the  baths,  and  there  lay  a  heap  in  a  corner,  saturated 
with  the  blood  from  my  dear  lord's  body.  Esmond  went 
to  the  fire,  and  threw  the  paper  into  it.  'Twas  a  great 
20  chimney  with  glazed  Dutch  tiles.  How  we  remember  such 
trifles  in  such  awful  moments !  —  the  scrap  of  the  book  that 
we  have  read  in  a  great  grief  —  the  taste  of  that  last  dish 
that  we  have  eaten  before  a  duel,  or  some  such  supreme 
meeting  or  parting.  On  the  Dutch  tiles  at  the  Bagnio° 
25  was  a  rude  picture  representing  Jacob  in  hairy  gloves,  cheating 
Isaac  of  Esau's  birthright.     The  burning  paper  lighted  it  up. 

"  'Tis  only  a  confession,  Mr.  Atterbury,"  said  the  young 
man.  He  leaned  his  head  against  the  mantelpiece :  a  burst 
of  tears  came  to  his  eyes.  They  were  the  first  he  had  shed 
30  as  he  sate  by  his  lord,  scared  by  this  calamity  and  more 
yet  by  what  the  poor  dying  gentleman  had  told  him,  and 
shocked  to  think  that  he  should  be  the  agent  of  bringing 
this  double  misfortune  on  those  he  loved  best. 

"Let  us  go  to  him,"  said  Mr.  Esmond.  And  accordingly 
35  they  went  into  the  next  chamber,  where,  by  this  time,  the 
dawn  had  broke,  which  showed  my  lord's  poor  pale  face  and 
wild  appealing  eyes,  that  wore  that  awful  fatal  look  of 
coming  dissolution.  The  surgeon  was  with  him.  He 
went  into    the    chamber   as    Atterbury    came    out    thence. 


HENRY   ESMOND  163 

My  Lord  Viscount  turned  round  his  sick  eyes  towards  Es- 
mond.    It  choked  the  other  to  hear  that  rattle  in  his  throat. 

"My  Lord  Viscount,"  says  Mr.  Atterbury,  "Mr.  Esmond 
wants  no  witnesses,  and  hath  burned  the  paper." 

"My  dearest  master!"  Esmond  said,  kneehng  down,  and  5 
taking  his  hand  and  kissing  it. 

My  Lord  Viscount  sprang  up  in  his  bed,  and  flung  his 
arms  round  Esmond.  "God  bl — bless  .  .  ."  was  all  he 
said.  The  blood  rushed  from  his  mouth,  deluging  the  young 
man.  My  dearest  lord  was  no  more.  He  was  gone  with  a  k 
blessing  on  his  lips,  and  love  and  repentance  and  kindness 
in  his  manly  heart. 

"Benedicti   benechcentes,°"  says  Mr.  Atterbury,  and  the 
young  man,  kneehng  at  the  bed-side,  groaned  out  an  Amen. 

"Who  shall  take  the  news  to  her?"  was  Mr.  Esmond's  i; 
next  thought.  And  on  this  he  besought  Mr.  Atterbury  to 
bear  the  tidings  to  Castlewood.  He  could  not  face  his 
mistress  himself  with  those  dreadful  new^s.  Mr.  Atterbury 
complying  kindly,  Esmond  writ°  a  hasty  note  on  his  table- 
book°  to  my  lord's  man,  bidding  him  get  the  horses  for  Mr.  2c 
Atterbury,  and  ride  with  him,  and  send  Esmond's  own 
valise  to  the  Gatehouse  prison,  °  whither  he  resolved  to  go 
and  give  himself  up. 


BOOK  II 

CONTAINS  MR.  ESMOND'S  MILITARY  LIFE  AND  OTHER 

MATTERS  APPERTAINING  TO  THE 

ESMOND  FAMILY 


165 


i 


CHAPTER  I 

I  AM  IN  PRISON,  AND  VISITED,  BUT  NOT  CONSOLED  THERE 

Those  may  imagine,  who  have  seen  Death  untimely- 
strike  down  persons  revered  and  beloved,  and  know  how 
unavailing  consolation  is,  what  was  Harry  Esmond's  anguish 
after  being  an  actor  in  that  ghastly  midnight  scene  of  blood 
and  homicide.  He  could  not,  he  felt,  have  faced  his  dear  5 
mistress,  and  told  her  that  story.  He  was  thankful  that 
kind  Atterbury  consented  to  break  the  sad  news  to  her; 
but,  besides  his  grief,  which  he  took  into  prison  with  him, 
he  had  that  in  his  heart  which  secretly  cheered  and  con- 
soled  him.  1° 

A  great  secret  had  been  told  to  Esmond  by  his  unhappy 
stricken  kinsman,  lying  on  his  death-bed.  Were  he  to  dis- 
close it,  as  in  equity  and  honour  he  might  do,  the  discovery 
would  but  bring  greater  grief  upon  those  whom  he  loved 
best  in  the  world,  and  who  were  sad  enough  already.  Should  15 
he  bring  down  shame  and  perplexity  upon  all  those  beings  to 
whom  he  was  attached  by  so  many  tender  ties  of  affection 
and  gratitude?  degrade  his  father's  widow?  impeach  and 
sully  his  father's  and  kinsman's  honour?  and  for  what? 
tor  a  barren  title,  to  be  worn  at  the  expense  of  an  innocent  20 
boy,  the  son  of  his  dearest  benefactress.  He  had  debated 
this  matter  in  his  conscience,  whilst  his  poor  lord  was  making 
his  dying  confession.  On  one  side  were  Ambition,  Temp- 
tation, Justice,  even;  but  Love,  Gratitude,  and  Fidehty 
pleaded  on  the  other.  And  when  the  struggle  was  over  in  25 
Harry's  mind,  a  glow  of  righteous  happiness  filled  it ;  and 
it  was  with  grateful  tears  in  his  eyes  that  he  returned  thanks 
to  God  for  that  decision  which  he  had  been  enabled  to  make. 

"When  I  was  denied  by  my  own  blood,"  thought   he, 
"these  dearest  friends  received  and  cherished  me.     When  3^ 

lfi7  


168  HENRY  ESMOND 

I  was  a  nameless  orphan  myself,  and  needed  a  protector 
I  found  one  in  yonder  kind  soul,  who  has  gone  to  his  account 
repenting  of  the  innocent  wrong  he  has  done." 

And  with  this  consoling  thought  he  went  away  to  give 
5  himself  up  at  the  prison,  after  kissing  the  cold  hps  of  his 
benefactor. 

It  was  on  the  third  day  after  he  had  come  to  the  Gatehouse 
prison  (where  he  lay  in  no  small  pain  from  his  wound,  which 
inflamed  and  ached  severely),  and  with  those  thoughts  and 
10  resolutions  that  have  been  just  spoke  of,  to  depress,  and  yet 
to  console  him;  that  H.  Esmond's  keeper  came  and  told 
him  that  a  visitor  was  asking  for  him,  and  though  he  could 
not  see  her  face,  which  was  enveloped  in  a  black  hood,  her 
whole  figure,  too,  being  veiled  and  covered  with  the  deepest 
15  mourning,  Esmond  knew  at  once  that  his  visitor  was  his 
dear  mistress. 

He  got  up  from  his  bed,  where  he  was  lying,  being  very 
weak;  and  advancing  towards  her,  as  the  retiring  keeper 
shut  the  door  upon  him  and  his  guest  in  that  sad  place,  he 
20  put  forward  his  left  hand  (for  the  right  was  wounded  and 
bandaged),  and  he  would  have  taken  that  kind  one  of  his 
mistress,  which  had  done  so  many  offices  of  friendship  for 
him  for  so  many  years. 

But  the  Lady  Castle  wood  went  back  from  him,  putting 
25  back  her  hood,  and  leaning  against  the  great  staunchioned 
door  which  the  gaoler  had  just  closed  upon  them.  Her  face 
was  ghastly  white,  as  Esmond  saw  it,  looking  from  the  hood ; 
and  her  eyes,  ordinarily  so  sweet  and  tender,  were  fixed  at 
him  with  such  a  tragick  glance  of  woe  and  anger,  as  caused 
30  the  young  man,  unaccustomed  to  unkindness  from  that 
person,  to   avert  his   own   glances   from   her   face. 

''And  this,  Mr.  Esmond,"  she  said,  "is  where  I  see  you; 
and  'tis  to  this  you  have  brought  me  ! " 

"You  have  come  to  console  me  in  my  calamity,  madam," 
35  said  he  (though  in  truth,  he  scarce  knew  how  to  address  her, 
his  emotions,  at  beholding  her,  so  overj^owered  him). 

She  advanced  a  little,  but  stood  silent  and  trembling,  look- 
ing out  at  him  from  her  bla(;k  draperies,  witli  her  small  white 
hands  clasped  together,  and  quivering  lips  and  hollow  eyes. 


HENRY   ESMOND  169 

"Not  to  reproach  me/'  he  continued,  after  a  pause.     "My 
grief  is  sufficient  as  it  is." 

''Take  back  your  hand  —  do  not  touch  me  with  it  !^'  she 
cried.     ''Look!    there's  blood  on  it !" 

"I  wish  they  had  taken  it  all,"  said  Esmond,  "if  you  are  5 
unkind  to  me." 

"Where  is  my  husband?"  she  broke  out.  "Give  me  back 
my  husband,  Henry.  Why  did  you  stand  by  at  midnight 
and  see  him  murdered  ?  Why  did  the  traitor  escape  who  did 
it?  You,  the  champion  of  your  house,  who  offered  to  die  10 
for  us !  You  that  he  loved  and  trusted,  and  to  whom  I 
confided  him  —  you  that  vowed  devotion  and  gratitude,  and 
I  believed  you  —  yes,  I  believed  you  —  why  are  you  here,  and 
my  noble  Francis  gone?  Why  did  you  come  among  us? 
You  have  only  brought  us  grief  and  sorrow :  and  repentance,  15 
bitter,  bitter  repentance,  as  a  return  for  our  love  and  kindness. 
Did  I  ever  do  you  a  wrong,  Henry  ?  You  were  but  an  orphan 
child  when  I  first  saw  you  —  when  he  first  saw  you,  who  vras 
so  good,  and  noble,  and  trusting.  He  would  have  had  you 
sent  away,  but  like  a  foolish  woman,  I  besought  him  to  let  20 
you  stay.  And  you  pretended  to  love  us,  and  we  believed 
you  —  and  you  made  our  house  wretched,  and  my  husband's 
heart  went  from  me :  and  I  lost  him  through  you  —  I  lost 
him  —  the  husband  of  my  youth,  I  say.  I  worshipped  him  : 
you  know  I  worshipped  him  —  and  he  was  changed  to  me.  25 
He  was  no  more  my  Francis  of  old  —  my  dear,  dear  soldier. 
He  loved  me  before  he  saw  you  :  and  I  loved  him.  Oh,  God 
is  my  witness  how  I  loved  him !  Why  did  he  not  send  you 
from  among  us  ?  'Twas  only  his  kindness  that  could  refuse 
me  nothing  then.  And,  young  as  you  were,  —  yes,  and  30 
weak  and  alone  —  there  was  evil,  I  knew  there  was  evil,  in 
keeping  you.  I  read  it  in  your  face  and  eyes.  I  saw  that 
they  boded  harm  to  us  —  and  it  came,  I  knew  it  would. 
Why  did  you  not  die  when  you  had  the  small-pox  —  and 
I  came  myself  and  watched  you,  and  you  didn't  know  me  in  35 
your  dehrium  —  and  you  callecl  out  for  me,  though  I  was 
there  at  your  side.  All  that  has  happened  since,  was  a  just 
judgment  on  my  wicked  heart  —  my  wicked  jealous  heart. 
Oh,  I  am  punished,  awfully  punished !     My  husband  hes  in 


170  HENRY  ESMOND 

his  blood  —  murdered  for  defending  me,  my  kind,  kind, 
generous  lord  —  and  you  were  by,  and  you  let  him  die, 
Henry ! " 
These  words,  uttered  in  the  wildness  of  her  grief,  by  one 
5  who  was  ordinarily  quiet,  and  spoke  seldom  except  with  a 
gentle  smile  and  a  soothing  tone,  rung  in  Esmond's  ear;  and 
'tis  said  that  he  repeated  many  of  them  in  the  fever  into 
which  he  now  fell  from  his  wound,  and  perhaps  from  the 
emotion    which    such    passionate    undeserved    upbraidings 

lo  caused  him.  It  seemed  as  if  his  very  sacrifices  and  love  for 
this  lady  and  her  family  were  to  turn  to  evil  and  reproach : 
as  if  his  presence  amongst  them  was  indeed  a  cause  of  grief, 
and  the  continuance  of  his  Hfe  but  woe  and  bitterness  to  theirs. 
As  the  Lady  Castlewood  spoke  bitterly,  rapidly,  without  a 

15  tear,  he  never  offered  a  word  of  appeal  or  remonstrance :  but 
sate  at  the  foot  of  his  prison-bed,  stricken  only  with  the 
more  pain  at  thinking  it  was  that  soft  and  beloved  hand 
which  should  stab  him  so  cruelly,  and  powerless  against  her 
fatal  sorrow.     Her  words  as  she  spoke  struck  the  chords  of 

20  all  his  memory,  and  the  whole  of  his  boyhood  and  youth 
passed  within  him,  whilst  this  lady,  so  fond  and  gentle  but 
yesterday,  —  this  good  angel  whom  he  had  loved  and  wor- 
shipped, —  stood  before  him,  pursuing  him  with  keen  words 
and  aspect  mahgn. 

25       "I  wish  I  were  in  my  lord's  place,''  he  groaned  out.     ''It 

was  not  my  fault  that  I  was  not  there,  madam.     But  Fate 

is  stronger  than  all  of  us,  and  willed  what  has  come  to  pass. 

It  had  been  better  for  me  to  have  died  when  I  had  the  illness." 

"Yes,  Henry,"  said  she  —  and  as  she  spoke  she  looked  at 

30  him  with  a  glance  that  was  at  once  so  fond  and  so  sad,  that 
the  young  man  tossing  up  his  arms  wildly  fell  back,  hiding  his 
head  in  the  coverlet  of  the  bed.  As  he  turned  he  struck 
against  the  wall  with  his  wounded  hand,  displacing  the  liga- 
ture;   and  he  felt  the  blood  rushing  again  from  the  wound. 

35  He  remembered  feeling  a  secret  pleasure  at  the  accident — • 
and  thinking  "Suppose  I  were  to  end  now,  who  would  grieve 
for  me?" 

This  hemoi-rhage,  or  the  grief  and  despair  in  which  the 
luckless  young  man  was  at  the  time  of  the  accident,  must 


HENRY   ESMOND  111 

have  brought  on  a  deliquium°  presently;  for  he  had  scarce 
any  recollection  afterwards,  save  of  some  one,  his  mistress 
probably,  seizing  his  hand  —  and  then  of  the  buzzing  noise 
in  his  ears  as  he  awoke,  with  two  or  three  persons  of  the 
prison  around  his  bed,  whereon  he  lay  in  a  pool  of  blood  from  5 
his  arm. 

It  was  now  bandaged  up  again  by  the  prison  surgeon,  who 
happened  to  be  in  the  place :  and  the  governor's  wife  and 
servant,  kind  people  both,  were  with  the  patient.  Esmond 
saw  his  mistress  still  in  the  room  when  he  awoke  from  his  10 
trance :  but  she  went  away  without  a  word ;  though  the 
governor's  wife  told  him  that  she  sate  in  her  room  for  some  • 
time  afterward,  and  did  not  leave  the  prison  until  she  heard 
that  Esmond  was  likely  to  do  well. 

Days  afterwards,  when  Esmond  was  brought  out  of  a  fever  15 
which  he  had,  and  which  attacked  him  that  night  pretty 
sharply,  the  honest  keeper's  wife  brought  her  patient  a  hand- 
kerchief fresh  washed  and  ironed,  and  at  the  corner  of  which 
he  recognised   his  mistress's  well-known   cypher°  and    vis- 
countess's crown.     "The  lady  had  bound  it  round  his  arm  20 
when  he  fainted,  and  before  she  called  for  help,"  the  keeper's 
wife  said.     ''Poor  lady;    she  took*on  sadly  about  her  hus- 
band.    He  has  been  buried    to-day,  and   a   many°   of   the 
coaches  of  the  nobility  went  with  him,  —  my  Lord  Marl- 
borough's  and   my    Lord    Sunderland's   and   man}'   of   the  25 
officers  of  the  Guards,  in  which  he  served  in  the  old  King's 
time :    and  my  lady  has  been  with  her  two  children  to  the 
King  at  Kensington, °  and  asked  for  justice  against  my  Lord 
Mohun,  who  is  in  hiding,  and  my  lord  the  Earl  of  Warwick 
and  Holland,  who  is  ready  to  give  himself  up  and  take  his  30 
trial." 

Such  were  the  news,  coupled  with  assertions  about  her  own 
honesty  and  that  of  Molly  her  maid,  who  would  never  have 
stolen  a  certain  trumpery  gold  sleeve-button  of  Mr.  Esmond's 
that  was  missing  after  his  fainting  fit,  that  the  keeper's  wife  35 
brought  to  her  lodger.  His  thoughts  followed  to  that  un- 
timely grave,  the  brave  heart,  the  kind  friend,  the  gallant 
gentleman,  honest  of  word  and  generous  of  thought  (if  feeble 
of  purpose,  but  are  his  betters  much  stronger  than  he  ?),  wha 


172  HENRY   ESMOND 

had  given  him  bread  and  shelter  when  he  hud  none;  home 
and  love  when  he  needed  them ;  and  who,  if  he  had  kept  one 
vital  secret  from  him,  had  done  that  of  which  he  repented  ere 
dying,  —  a  wrong  indeed,  but  one  followed  by  remorse,  and 
5  occasioned  by  almost  irresistible  temptation. 

Esmond  took  his  handkerchief  when  his  nurse  left  him,  and 
very  likely  kissed  it,  and  looked  at  the  bauble  embroidered  in 
the  corner.  "It  has  cost  thee  grief  enough,'^  he  thought, 
"dear  lady,  so  loving  and  so  tender.     Shall  I  take  it  from 

lo  thee  and  thy  children  ?  No,  never !  Keep  it,  and  wear  it, 
my  little  Frank,  my  pretty  boy.  If  I  cannot  make  a  name 
for  myself,  I  can  die  without  one.  Some  day,  when  my  dear 
mistress  sees  my  heart,  I  shall  be  righted ;  or  if  not  here  or 
now,  why,  elsewhere ;   where  Honour  doth  not  follow  us,  but 

15  where  Love  reigns  perpetual." 

Tis  needless  to  relate  here,  as  the  reports  of  the  lawyers 
already  have  chronicled  them,  the  particulars  or  issue  of  that 
trial  which  ensued  upon  my  Lord  Castlewood's  melancholy 
homicide.     Of  the  two  lords  engaged  in  that  sad  matter, 

20  the  second,  my  lord  the  Earl  of  Warwick  and  Holland,  who 
had  been  engaged  w^ith  Colonel  Westbury,  and  w^ounded  by 
him,  was  found  not  guilty  by  his  peers,  before  whom  he  was 
tried  (under  the  presidence  of  the  Lord  Steward,  Lord 
8omers°) ;   and  the  principal,  the  Lord  Mohun,  being  found 

25  guilty  of  the  manslaughter  (which,  indeed,  was  forced  upon 
him,  and  of  which  he  repented  most  sincerely),  pleaded  his 
clergy;  and  so  was  discharged  without  any  penalty.  The 
widow  of  the  slain  nobleman,  as  it  was  told  us  in  prison, 
showed  an  extraordinary  spirit ;   and  though  she  had  to  wait 

30  for  ten  years  before  her  son  was  old  enough  to  compass  it, 
declared  she  would  have  revenge  of  her  Ixusband's  murderer. 
80  much  and  suddenly  had  grief,  anger,  and  misfortune 
appeared  to  change  her.  But  fortune,  good  or  ill,  as  I  take  it, 
does  not  change  men  and  women.     It  but  develops  their 

35  characters.  As  there  are  a  thousand  thoughts  lying  within 
a  man  that  he  does  not  know  till  he  takes  up  the  pen  to  wi-ite, 
so  the  heart  is  a  secret  even  to  him  (or  her)  who  has  it  in  his 
own  breast.  Who  hath  not  found  himself  surprised  into 
revenge,  or  action,  or  passion,  for  good  or  evil ;   whereof  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  173 

seeds  lay  within  him,  latent  and  unsuspected  until  the  oc- 
casion called  them  forth?  With  the  death  of  her  lord,  a 
change  seemed  to  come  over  the  whole  conduct  and  mind 
of  Lady  Castlewood ;  but  of  this  we  shall  speak  in  the  right 
season  and  anon.  5 

The  lords  being  tried  then  before  their  peers  at  Westmin- 
ster, °  according  to  their  privilege,  being  brought  from  the 
Tower  with  state  processions  and  barges,  and  accompanied 
by  lieutenants  and  axemen,  the  commoners  engaged  in  that 
melancholy  fray  took  their  trial  at  Newgate,  °  as  became  10 
them ;  and,  being  all  found  guilty,  pleaded  likewise  their 
benefit  of  clergy. °  The  sentence,  as  we  all  know,  in  these 
cases  is,  that  the  culprit  lies  a  year  in  prison,  or  during  the 
King's  pleasure,  and  is  burned  in  the  hand,  or  only  stamped 
with  a  cold  iron ;  or  this  part  of  the  punishment  is  altogether  15 
remitted  at  the  grace  of  the  Sovereign.  So  Harry  Esmond 
found  himself  a  criminal  and  a  prisoner  at  two-and-twenty 
years  old ;  as  for  the  two  colonels  his  comrades,  they  took 
the  matter  very  lightly.  Duelling"  was  a  part  of  their  busi- 
ness ;  and  they  could  not  in  honour  refuse  any  invitations  of  20 
that  sort. 

But  the  case  was  different  with  ]\Ir.  Esmond.  His  life  was 
changed  by  that  stroke  of  the  sword  which  destroyed  his 
kind  patron's.  As  he  lay  in  prison,  old  Dr.  Tusher  fell  ill 
and  died;  and  Lady  Castlewood  appointed  Thomas  Tusher  25 
to  the  vacant  living;  about  the  filhng  of  which  she  had  a 
thousand  times  fondly  talked  to  Harry  Esmond :  how  they 
never  should  part ;  how  he  should  educate  her  boy ;  how  to 
be  a  country  clergyman,  like  sainth^  George  Herbert  or  pious 
Dr.  Ken,°  was  the  happiest  and  greatest  lot  in  life ;  how  (if  30 
he  were  obstinately  bent  on  it,  though,  for  her  part,  she  owned 
rather  to  holding  Queen  Bess's  opinion,  that  a  bishop  should 
have  no  wife,  and  if  not  a  bishop,  why  a  clergj^man?)  she 
would  find  a  good  wife  for  Harry  Esmond :  and  so  on,  with 
a  hundred  pretty  prospects  told  by  fireside  evenings,  in  fond  35 
prattle,  as  the  children  played  about  the  hall.  All  these 
plans  were  overthrown  now.  Thomas  Tusher  wrote  to 
Esmond,  as  he  lay  in  prison,  announcing  that  his  patroness 
had  conferred  upon  him  the  li\dng  his  reverend  father  had 


174  HENRY   ESMOND 

held  for  many  years ;  that  she  never,  after  the  tragical  events 
which  had  occurred-  (whereof  Tom  spoke  with  a  very  edifying 
horror),  could  see  in  the  revered  Tusher's  pulpit,  or  at  her 
son's  table,  the  man  who  was  answerable  for  the  father's  life; 

5  that  her  ladyship  bade  him  to  say  that  she  prayed  for  her 
kinsman's  repentance  and  his  worldly  happiness;  that  he 
was  free  to  command  her  aid  for  any  scheme  of  life  which 
he  might  propose  to  hiinself;  but  that  on  this  side  of  the 
grave  she  would  see  him  no  more.     And  Tusher,  for  his  own 

lo  part,  added  that  Harry  should  have  his  prayers  as  a  friend 
of  his  youth,  and  commended  him  whilst  he  was  in  prison  to 
read  certain  works  of  theology,  which  his  Reverence  pro- 
nounced to  be  very  wholesome  for  sinners  in  his  lamentable 
condition. 

15  And  this  was  the  return  for  a  life  of  devotion  —  this  the 
end  of  years  of  affectionate  intercourse  and  passionate 
fidelity !  Harry  would  have  died  for  his  patron,  and  was 
held  as  little  better  than  his  murderer :  he  had  sacrificed, 
she  did  not  know  how  much,  for  his  mistress,  and  she  threw 

20  him  aside  —  he  had  endowed  her  family  with  all  they  had, 
and  she  talked  about  giving  him  alms  as  to  a  menial !  The 
grief  for  his  patron's  loss  :  the  pains  of  his  own  present  position, 
and  doubts  as  to  the  future :  all  these  were  forgotten  under 
the  sense  of  the  consummate  outrage  which  he  had  to  endure, 

25  and  overpowered  by  the  superior  pang  of  that  torture. 
Jle  writ  back  a  letter  to  ]\lr.  Tusher  from  his  prison,  con- 
gratulating his  reverence  upon  his  appointment  to  the  livin<^; 
of  Castlewood :    sarcastically  bidding  him  to  follow  in  the 
footstej^s  of  his  admirable  father,  whose  gown°  had  descended 

30  upon  him  —  thanking  her  ladyship  for  her  offer  of  alms, 
which  he  said  he  should  trust  not  to  need;  and  beseeching 
her  to  remember  that  if  ever  her  determination  should  change 
towards  him,  he  would  be  ready  to  give  her  proofs  of  a 
fidelity  which  had  never  wavered  and  which  ought  never 

35  to  have  been  questioned  Ijy  that  house.  "And  if  we  meet 
no  more,  or  only  as  strangers  in  this  world,"  Mr.  Esmond 
concluded,  "a  sentence  against  the  .cruelty  and  injustice 
of  which  I  disdain  to  appeal ;  hereafter  she  will  know 
who  was  faithful  to   hoi;,  and   whether   she   had   any   cause 


HENRY   ESMOND  175 

to  suspect   the    love    and    devotion    of    her    kinsman    and 
servant." 

After  the  sending  of  this  letter,  the  poor  young  fellow's 
mind  was  more  at  ease  than  it  had  been  previously.  The 
blow  had  been  struck,  and  he  had  borne  it.  His  cruel  God-  5 
dess  had  shaken  her  wings  and  fled :  and  left  him  alone  and 
friendless,  but  virtute  sud°  And  he  had  to  bear  him  up, 
at  once  the  sense  of  his  right,  and  the  feeling  of  his  wrongs, 
his  honour  and  his  misfortune.  As  I  have  seen°  men  waking 
and  running  to  arms,  at  a  sudden  trumpet,  before  emergency  10 
a  manly  heart  leaps  up  resolute;  meets  the  threatening 
danger  with  undaunted  countenance;  and  whether  con- 
quered or  conquering  faces  it  always.  Ah !  no  man  knows 
his  strength  or  his  weakness  till  occasion  proves  them.  If 
there  be  some  thoughts  and  actions  of  his  life  from  the  15 
memory  of  which  a  man  shrinks  with  shame,  sure  there  are 
some  which  he  may  be  proud  to  own  and  remember;  for- 
given injuries,  conquered  temptations  (now  and  then),  and 
difficulties  vanquished  by  endurance. 

It  was  these  thoughts  regarding  the  living,  far  more  than  20 
any  great   poignancy  of  grief  respecting  the   dead,   which 
affected  Harry  Esmond  whilst  in  prison  after  his  trial :   but 
it  may  be  imagined  that  he  could  take  no  comrade  of  mis- 
fortune into  the  confidence  of  his  feelings,  and  they  thought 
it  was  remorse  and  sorrow  for  his  patron's  loss  which  affected  25 
the  young  man,  in  error  of  which  opinion  he  chose  to  leave 
them.     As  a  companion  he  was  so  moody  and  silent  that  the 
two  officers,  his  fellow-sufferers,  left  him  to  himself  mostly, 
liked  little   very  likely  what  they  knew  of  him,   consoled 
themselves  with  dice,  cards,  and  the  bottle,  and  whiled  away  3° 
their  own  captivity  in  their  own  way.     It  seemed  to  Esmond 
as  if  he  lived  years  in  that  prison  :  and  was  changed  and  aged 
when  he  came  out  of  it.     At  certain  periods  of  life  we  five 
years  of  emotion  in  a  few  weeks  —  and  look  back  on  tJiose 
times,  as  on  great  gaps  between  the  old  life  and  the  new.     You  35 
do  not  know  how  much  you  suffer  in  those  critical  maladies 
of  the  heart,  until  the  disease  is  over  and  you  look  back  on  it 
afterwards.     During  the  time  the  suffering  is  at  least  suf- 


176  HENRY  ESMOND 

ferable.  The  day  passes  in  more  or  less  of  pain,  and  the  night 
wears  away  somehow.  Tis  only  in  after  days  that  we  see 
what  the  danger  has  been  —  as  a  man  out  a-hunting°  or 
riding  for  his  hfe  looks  at  a  leap,  and  wonders  how  he  should 
5  have  survived  the  taking  of  it.  0  dark  months  of  grief  and 
rage !  of  wrong  and  cruel  endurance !  He  is  old  now  who 
recalls  you.  Long  ago  he  has  forgiven  and  blest  the  soft 
liand  that  wounded  him :  but  the  mark  is  there,  and  the 
wound  is  cicatrized  only  —  no  time,  tears,  caresses,  or  re- 

lo  pentance  can  obhterate  the  scar.  We  are  indocile  to  put  up 
with  grief,  however.  Reficimus  rates  quassas° :  we  tempt 
the  ocean  again  and  again,  and  try  upon  new  ventures.  Es- 
mond thought  of  his  early  time  as  a  noviciate, °  and  of  this 
past  trial  as  an  initiation  before  entering  into  life  ^-  as  our 

15  young  Indians  undergo  tortures  silently  before  they  j^ass  to  the 
rank  of  warriors  in  the  tribe. 

The  officers,  meanwhile,  who  were  not  let  into  the  secret  of 
the  grief  which  was  gnawing  at  the  side  of  their  silent  young 
friend,  and  being  accustomed  to  such  transactions  in  which 

20  one  comrade  or  another  was  daily  paying  the  forfeit  of  the 
sword,  did  not  of  course  bemoan  themselves  inconsolably 
about  the  fate  of  their  late  companion  in  arms.  This  one 
told  stories  of  former  adventures  of  love,  or  w^ar,  or  pleasure, 
in  which  poor  Frank  Esmond  had  been  engaged ;    t'other° 

25  recollected  how  a  constable  had  been  bilked, °  or  a  tavern- 
bully  beaten :  whilst  my  lord's  poor  widow  was  sitting  at 
his  tomb  worshipi)ing  him  as  an  actual  saint  and  spotless 
hero,  —  so  the  visitors  said  who  hnd  news  of  Lady  (.Vtstlewood ; 
and  Westbury  and  Macartney  had  pretty  nearly  had  all  the 

30  town  to  come  and  see  them. 

The  duel,  its  fatal  termination,  the  trial  of  the  two  peers° 
and  the  three  commoners  concerned,  had  caused  the  greatest 
excitement  in  the  town.  The  prints  and  News  Letters  were 
full  of  them.     The  three  gentlemen  in  Newgate  were  almost 

35  as  much  crowded  as  the  bishops  in  the  Tower, °  or  a  highway- 
man before  execution.  We°  were  al]ow(;d  to  live  in  the 
Governor's  house, °  as  hath  been  said,  both  before  trial  and 
after  condemnation,  waiting  the  King's  pleasure;  nor  was 
the  n\al  cause  of  the  fatal  quarrel  known,  so  closely  had  my 


HENRY   ESMOND  177« 

lord  and  the  two  other  persons  who  knew  it  kept  the  secret, 
but  e\'ery  one  imagined  that  the  origin  of  the  meeting  was  a 
gam})hng  dispute.  Except  fresh  air,  the  prisoners  had,  upon 
})ayment,  most  things  they  could  desire.  Interest  was  made 
that  they  should  not  mix  with  the  vulgar  convicts,  whose  5 
ribald  choruses  and  loud  laughter  and  curses  could  be  heard 
from  their  own  part  of  the  prison,  where  they  and  the  miser- 
able debtors  w^ere  confined  pell-mell. 


CHAPTER    II 

I   COME   TO   THE    END    OF   MY   CAPTIVITY,  BUT   NOT   OF 
MY  TROUBLE 

Among  the  company  which  came  to  \asit  the  two  officers 
was  an  old  acquaintance  of  Harry  Esmond,  that  gentleman  10 
of  the  Guards,  nam^ely,  who  had  been  so  kind  to  Harry  when 
Captain  Westbury's  troop  had  been  quartered  at  Castle  wood 
more  than  seven  years  before.     Dick  the   Scholar  was  no 
longer  Dick  the  Trooper  now,  but  Captain  Steele,  of  Lucas's 
Fusileers,   and   secretary  to   my   Lord   Cutts,    that   famous  15 
officer  of  King  Vv'ilHam's,  the  bravest  and  most  beloved  man 
of  the   English   army.     The   two   jolly   prisoners  had   been 
drinking  with  a  party  of  friends  (for  our  cellar  and  that  of 
the   keepers   of   Newgate   too,    were    supplied   with   endless 
hampers  of    Burgundy  and  Champagne  that  the  friends  of  20 
the  Colonels  sent   in) ;   and  Harry,  having  no  wish  for  their 
drink,  or  their  conversation,  being  too  feeble  in  health  for 
the  one,  and  too  sad  in  spirits  for  the  other,  was  sitting  " 
apart  in  his  httle  room,  reading  such  books  as  he  had,  one 
evening,    when    honest    Colonel    Westbury,     flushed    with  25 
liquor,  and  always  good-humoured  in  and  out  of  his  cups, 
came  laughing  into  Harry's  closet,   and  said,  /'Ho,  young 
Killjoy^!  here's  a  friend  come  to  see  thee°;    he'll  pray  with 
thee,  or  he'll  drink  with  thee;   or  he'll  drink  and  pray  turn 
about.     Dick,  my  Christian  Hero,°  here's  the  httle  scholar  30 
of  Castlewood." 

Dick  came  up  and  kissed  Esmond  on  both  cheeks,  °  impart- 


,178  HENRY   ESMOND 

ing  a  strong  perfume  of  burnt  sack°  along  with  his  caress  to 
the  young  man. 

"What !  is  this  the  Httle  man  that  used  to  talk  Latin  and 
fetch  our  bowls  ?  How  tall  thou  art  grown !  I  protest  I 
5  should  have  known  thee  anywhere.  And  so  you  have 
turned  ruffian  and  fighter ;  and  wanted  to  measure  swords 
with  Mohun,  did  you?  I  protest  that  Mohun  said  at  the 
Guard  dinner  yesterday,  where  there  was  a  pretty  company 
of  us,  that  the  young  fellow  wanted  to  fight  him,  and  was 

10  the  better  man  of  the  two.'' 

"I  wish  we  could  have  tried  and  proved  it,  ]\Ir.  Steele," 
says  Esmond,  thinking  of  his  dead  benefactor,  and  his  eyes 
filling  with  tears. 

With  the  exception  of  that  one  cruel  letter  which  he  had 

15  from  his  mistress,  Mr.  Esmond  heard  nothing  from  her,  and 
she  seemed  determined  to  execute  her  resolve  of  parting 
from  him  and  disowning  him.  But  he  had  news  of  her, 
such  as  it  was,  which  Mr.  Steele  assiduousl}^  brought  him 
from  the  Prince's  and  Princess's  Court, °  where  our  honest 

20  Captain  had  been  advanced  to  the  post  of  gentleman  wa'tor.° 
When  off  duty  there,  Captain  Dick  often  came  to  console 
his  friends  in  captivity;  a  good  nature  and  a  friendly  dis- 
position towards  all  who  were  in  ill-fortune  no  doubt  prompt- 
ing him  to  make  his  visits,  and  good  fellowship  and  good 

25  wine   to   prolong   them. 

"Faith,"  says  Westbury,  "the  little  scholar  was  the  first 
to  begin  the  quarrel  —  I  mind  me°  of  it  now  —  at  Lockit's. 
I  always  hated  that  fellow  Mohun.  What  was  the  real 
cause  of  the  quarrel  betwixt  him  and  poor  Frank?     I  would 

30  wager  'twas  a  woman." 

"  'Twas  a  quarrel  about  play  —  on  my  word,  about  play,-" 
Harry  said.  "My  poor  lord  lost  great  sums  to  his  guest 
at  C'astlcwood.  Angry  words  passed  between  them ;  and 
tliough  Lord  Castlewood  was  the  kindest  and  most  pliable 

35  soul  alive,  his  sj)irit  was  very  high;   and  hence  that  meeting  , 
which  lias  brought  us  all  here,"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  resolved 
never  to  acknowknlge  that  there  had  e^'cr  been  any  other 
cause  but  cards  for  the  duel. 

"I  do  not  like  to  use  bad  words  of  a  nobleman,"  says  West- 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  179 

bury.  "But  if  my  Lord  Mohun  were  a  commoner,  I  would 
say,  'twas  a  pity  he  was  not  hanged.  He  was  famihar  with 
dice  and  women,  at  a  time  other  boys  are  at  school,  being 
birched ;  he  was  as  wicked  as  the  oldest  rake,  years  ere  he 
had  done  growing;  and  handled  a  sword,  and  a  foil,  and  a  5 
bloody  one,  too,  before  e\'er  he  used  a  razor.  He  held  poor 
Will  jNIountford  in  talk  that  night,  when  bloody  Dick  Hill 
ran  him  through.  He  will  come  to  a  bad  end,  will  that 
young  lord;  and  no  end  is  bad  enough  for  him,"  says  honest 
Mr.  Westbury :  whose  prophecy  was  fulfilled  twelve  years  10 
after,  upon  that  fatal  day,  when  Mohun  fell,  dragging  down 
one  of  the  bravest  and  greatest  gentlemen  in  England^  in 
his  fall. 

From  Mr.  Steele,  then,  who  brought  the  publick  rumour,  as 
well  as  his  own  private  intelligence,  Esmond  learned  the  15 
movements  of  his  unfortunate  mistress.  Steele's  heart  was 
of  very  inflammable  composition ;  and  the  gentleman  usher 
spoke  in  terms  of  boundless  admiration  both  of  the  widow 
(that  most  beautiful  woman,  as  he  said),  and  of  her  daughter, 
who,  in  the  Captain's  eyes,  was  a  still  greater  paragon.  If  ^° 
the  pale  widow,  whom  Captain  Richard,  in  his  poetick 
rapture,  compared  to  a  Xiobe°  in  tears,  —  to  a  Sigismunda,° 
—  to  a  weeping  Belvidera,°  was  an  object  the  most  lovely 
and  pathetick  which  his  eyes  had  ever  beheld,  cr  for  which 
his  heart  had  melted,  even  her  ripened  perfections  and  beauty  25 
were  as  nothing,  compared  to  the  promise  of  that  extreme 
loveliness  which  the  good  captain  saw  in  her  daughter. 
It  was  matre  pulcra  filia  pidcrior°  Steele  composed  sonnets 
whilst  he  was  on  duty  in  his  Prince's  antechamber,  to  the 
maternal  and  filial  charms.  He  would  speak;  for  hours  30 
about  them  to  Harry  Esmond;  and,  indeed,  he  could  have 
chosen  few  subjects  more  likely  to  interest  the  unhappy 
young  man,  whose  heart  was  now  as  alwa^^s  devoted  to 
these  ladies;  and  who  was  thankful  to  all  who  loved  them, 
or  praised  them,  or  wished  them  well.  35 

Not  that  his  fidelity  was  recompensed  by  any  answering 
kindness,  or  show  of  relenting  even,  on  the  part  of  a  mistress 
obdurate  now  after  ten  years  of  love  and  benefactions. 
The   poor   young   man    getting   no   answer,    save    Tusher's, 


180  HEN  BY   ESMOND 

to  that  letter  which  he  had  written,  and  being  too  proud  to 
write  more,  opened  a  part  of  his  heart  to  Steele,  than  whom 
no  man,  when  unhappy,  could  find  a  kinder  hearer,  or  more 
friendly  emissary,  described  (in  words  which  were  no  doubt 
5  pathetick,  for  they  came  imo  pectore°  and  caused  honest 
Dick  to  weep  plentifully)  his  youth,  his  constancy,  his  fond 
devotion  to  that  household  which  had  reared  him ;  his  affec- 
tion, how  earned,  and  how  tenderly  requited  until  but  yester- 
day, and  (as  far  as  he  might)  the  circumstances  and  causes 

10  for  which  that  sad  quarrel  had  made  of  Esmond  a  prisoner 
under  sentence,  a  widow  and  orphans  of  those  whom  in  life 
he  held  dearest.  In  terms  that  might  well  move  a  harder- 
hearted  man  than  young  Esmond's  confidant  —  for,  indeed, 
the  speaker's  own  heart  was  half  broke  as  he  uttered  them  — 

15  he  described  a  part  of  what  had  taken  place  in  that  only 
sad  interview  which  his  mistress  had  granted  him;  how  she 
had  left  him  with  anger  and  almost  imprecation,  whose 
words  and  thoughts  until  then  had  been  only  blessing  and 
kindness ;  how  she  had  accused  him  of  the  guilt  of  that  blood, 

20  in  exchange  for  which  he  would  cheerfully  have  sacrificed 
his  own  (indeed,  in  this  the  Lord  Mohun,  the  Lord 
Warwick,  and  all  the  gentlemen  engaged,  as  well  as  the 
common  rumour  out  of  doors  —  Steele  told  him  —  bore 
out  the  luckless  young  man) ;    and   with  all  his  heart,  and 

25  tears,  he  besought  Mr.  Steele  to  inform  his  mistress  of 
her  kinsman's'  unhappiness,  and  to  deprecate  that  cruel 
anger  she  showed  him.  Half  frantick  with  grief  at  the 
injustice  done  him,  and  contrasting  it  with  a  thousand  soft 
recollections   of   love   and   confidence   gone   by,   that  made 

30  his  present  .  misery  inexpressibly  more  bitter,  the  poor 
wretch  pissed  many  a  lonely  day  and  wakeful  night  in  a 
kind  of  powerless  despair  and  rage  against  his  ini{|uitous 
fortune.  It  was  the  softest  hand  that  struck  him,  the 
gentlest  and    most    compassionate    nature    that   persecuted 

35  him.  "  I  would  as  lief,"  he  said,  "have  pleaded  guilty  to  the 
murder,  and  have  suffered  for  it  like  any  other  felon,  as 
have  to  endure  the  torture  to  which  my  mistress  subjects 
me." 

Although  the  recital  of  Esmond's  story,  and  his  passionate 


HENRY   ESMOND  181 

appeals  and  remonstrances  drew  so  many  tears  from  Dick 
who  heard  them,  they  had  no  effect  upon  the  person  whom 
they  were  designed  to  move.  Esmond's  ambassador  came 
back  from  the  mission  with  which  the  poor  young  gentleman 
had  charged  him,  with  a  sad  blank  face  and  a  shake  of  the  head  5 
which  told  that  there  was  no  hope  for  the  prisoner;  and 
scarce  a  wretched  culprit  in  that  prison  of  NeAvgate  ordered 
for  execution,  and  trembling  for  a  reprieve,  felt  more  cast 
down  than  Mr.  Esmond,  innocent  ancl  condemned. 

As  had  been  arranged  between  the  prisoner  and  his  counsel  iq 
in  their  consultations,  Mr.  Steele  had  gone  to  the  dowager's° 
house  in  Chelsea,  wdiere  it  has  been  said  the  widow^  and  her 
orphans  were,  had  seen  my  Lady  Viscountess  and  pleaded 
the   cause  of  her  unfortunate   kinsman.     ''And   I   think  I 
spoke  well,  my  poor  boy,"  says  Mr.  Steele;    "for  who  would  15 
not  speak  well  in  such  a  cause,  and  before  so  beautiful  a 
judge?     I  did  not  see  the  lovely  Beatrix  (sure  her  fa  nous 
namesake  of  Florence  °  w^ as  never  half  so  beautiful),  only  the 
young  viscount  w^as  in  the  room  with  the  Lord  ChurchiJ,  my 
Lord  of  Marlborough's  eldest  son.     But  these  young  gentle-  20 
men  went  off  to  the  garden,  I  could  see  them  from  the  win- 
dow tilting  at  each  other  with  poles  Ir  a  mimick  tournament 
(grief  touches  the  young  but  hghtly,  and  I  remember  that  I 
beat  a  drum  at  the  coffin  of  my  own  father°).     My  Lady  Vis- 
countess looked  out  at  the  tw^o  boys  at  their  game,  and  said  —  25 
"You  see,  sir,  children  are  taught  to  use  weapons  of  death 
as  toys,  and  to  make  a  sport  of  murder,"  and  as  she  spoke 
she  looked  so  lovely,  and  stood  there  in  herself  so  sad  and 
beautiful  an    instance    of    that    doctrine  whereof  I  am    a 
humble  preacher,  that  had  I  not  dedicated  my  little  volume  of  30 
the  Christian  Hero  —  (I  perceive,  Harry,  thou  hast  not  cut  the 
leaves  of  it.     The  sermon  is  good,  believe  me,  though  the 
preacher's  life  may  not  answ^er  it)  —  I  say,  hadn't  I  dedicated 
the  volume  to  Lord  Cutts,  I  would  have  asked  permission  to 
place  her  ladyship's  name  on  the  first  page.     I  think  I  never  35 
saw  such  a  beautiful  violet  as  that  of  her  eyes,  Harry.     Her 
complexion  is  of  the  pink  of  the  blushrose,   she  hath  an 
exquisite  turned  wrist  and  dimpled  hand,  and  I  make  no 
doubt " 


182  HENRY   ESMOND 

"Did  you  come  to  tell  me  about  the  dimples  on  my  lady's 
hand?"  broke  out  Mr.  Esmond,  sadly. 

"A  lovely  creature  in  affliction  seems  always  doubly 
beautiful  to  me/'  says  the  poor  captain,  who  indeed  was 
5  but  too  often  in  a  state  to  see  double,  and  so  checked  he 
resumed  the  interrupted  thread  of  his  story.  "As  I  spoke 
my  business,"  Mr.  Steele  said,  "and  narrated  to  your  mistress 
what  all  the  world  knows,  and  the  other  side  hath  been 
eager  to  acknowledge  —  that  you  had  tried  to  put  yourself 

10  between  the  two  lords,  and  to  take  your  patron's  quarrel 
on  your  own  point :  I  recounted  the  general  praises  of  your 
gallantry,  besides  my  Lord  Mohun's  particular  testimony  to 
it :  I  thought  the  widow  listened  with  some  interest,  and  her 
eyes  —  I  have  never  seen  such  a  violet,  Harry  —  looked  up 

15  at  mine  once  or  twice.  But  after  I  had  spoken  on  this  theme 
for  a  while  she  suddenly  broke  away  with  a  cry  of  grief. 
*I  would  to  God,  sir/  she  said,  'I  had  never  heard  that 
word  gallantry  which  you  use,  or  known  the  meaning  of  it. 
My  lord  might  have  been  here  but  for  that ;  my  home  might 

20  be  happy ;  my  poor  boy  have  a  father.  It  was  what  you 
gentlemen  call  gallantry  came  into  my  home,  and  drove  my 
husband  on  to  the  cruel  sword  that  killed  him.  You  should 
not  speak  the  word  to  a  Christian  woman,  sir  —  a  poor 
widowed  mother  of  orphans,  whose  home  was  happy  until 

25  the  world   came   into   it  —  the  wicked  godless  world,   that 

takes  the  blood  of  the  innocent  and  lets  the  guilty  go  free.' 

"As  the  afflicted  lady  spoke  in  this  strain,  sir,"  Mr.  Steele 

contiimed,  "it  seemed  as  if  indignation  moved  her,  even  more 

than   grief.     '  Compensation ! '    she    went    on    passionately, 

30  her  cheeks  and  eyes  kindling,  'what  compensation  does 
your  world  give  the  widow  for  her  husband,  and  the  children 
for  the  murder  of  their  father?  The  wretch  who  did  the 
deed  has  not  even  a  punishment.  Conscience !  what  con- 
science has  he,  who  can  enter  the  house  of  a  friend,  whisper 

35  falsehood  and  insult  to  a  woman  that  nevei"  harmed  him, 
and  stal)  the  kind  h(\art  that  trusted  him?  My  Lord  — my 
Lord  Wretch's,  my  Lord  Villain's,  my  Lord  Murderer's  peers 
meet  to  try  him,  and  they  dismiss  him  with  a  word  or  two  of 
reproof,  and  send  him  into  the  world  again,  to  pursue  women 


HENRY    ESMOND  183 

with  lust  and  falsehood,  and  to  murder  unsuspecting  guests 
that  harbour  him.  That  day  my  Lord  —  my  Lord  Murderer  — 
(I  will  never  name  him)  —  was  let  loose,  a  woman  was  exe- 
cuted at  Tyburn  for  steaUng  in  a  shop.  But  a  man  may 
rob  another  of  his  life,  or  a  lady  of  her  honour,  and  shall  5 
pay  no  penalty !  I  take  my  child,  run  to  the  throne,  and, 
on  my  knees,  ask  for  justice,  and  the  King  refuses  me. 
The  King° !  he  is  no  king  of  mine  —  he  never  shall  be. 
He,  too,  robbed  the  throne  from  the  king  his  father  —  the 
true  king  —  and  he  has  gone  unpunished,  as  the  great  do.'  ic 

"I  then  thought  to  speak  for  you,"  Mr.  Steele  continued, 
"and  I  interposed  by  saying,  'There  was  one,  madam, 
who,  at  least,  would  have  put  his  own  breast  between  your 
husband's  and  my  Lord  Mohun's  sword.  Your  poor  young 
kinsman,  Harry  Esmond,  hath  told  me  that  he  tried  to  draw  i: 
the  quarrel  on  himself.' 

"'Are  you  come  from  him?'  asked  the  lady"  (so  Mr. 
Steele  went  on),  "rising  up  with  a  great  severity  and  state- 
hness.  'I  thought  you  had  come  from  the  Princzss.  I 
saw  Mr.  Esmond  in  his  prison,  and  bade  him  farewell.  He  2c 
brought  misery  into  my  house.  He  never  should  have 
entered  it.' 

"'Madam,  madam,  he  is  not  to    blame,'  I    interposed," 
continued  ]Mr.  Steele. 

"'Do  I  blame  him   to  you,  sir?'    asked  the  widow.     'If  2- 
'tis  he  who  sent  you,  say  that  I  have  taken  counsel,  where ' 
—  she  spoke  with  a  very  pallid  cheek  now,  and  a  break  in 
her  voice  —  '  where  all  who  ask  may  have  it ;  —  and  that  it 
bids  me  to  part  from  him,  and  to  see  him  no  more.     We  met 
in  the  prison  for  the  last  time  —  at  least  for  years  to  come.  3c 
It  may  be,  in  years  hence,  when  —  when  our  knees  and  our 
tears  and  our   contrition  have   changed   our   sinful  hearts, 
sir,  and  ^\Tought  our  pardon,  we  m.ay  meet  again  —  but  not 
now.     After  what  has  passed,  I  could  not  bear  to  see  him. 
I  wish  him  well,  sir :  but  I  wish  him  farewell,  too ;   and  if  he  3: 
has  that  —  that  regard  towards  us,  which  he  speaks  of,  I 
beseech  him  to  prove  it  by  obeying  me  in  this.' 

"'I  shall  break  the  young  man's  heart,  madam,  by  this 
hard  sentence, '  "  ^Ir.  Steele  said. 


184  HENRY   ESMOND 

"The  lady  shook  her  head,"  continued  my  kind  scholar. 
"'The  hearts  of  young  men,  Mr.  Steele,  are  not  so  made,' 
she  said.  '  Mr.  Esmond  will  find  other  —  other  friends. 
The  mistress  of  this  house  has  relented  very  much  towards 
5  the  late  lord's  son,'  she  added,  with  a  blush,  'and  has  prom- 
ised me,  tliat  is,  has  promised  that  she  will  care  for  his  fortune. 
Whilst  I  live  in  it,  after  the  horrid,  horrid  deed  which  has  passed. 
Castle  wood  must  never  be  a  home  to  him  —  never.  Nor  would 
I  have  him  write  to  me  —  except  —  no  —  I  would  have  him 

lo  never  write  to  me,  nor  see  him  more.     Give  him,  if  you  will, 

my  parting  —  Hush!  not  a  word  of  this  before  my  daughter.' 

"Here  the  fair  Beatrix  entered  from  the  river,  ^\ith  her 

cheeks  flushing  with  health,  and  looking  only  the  more  lovely 

and  fresh  for  the   mourning   habihments  which  she  wore. 

15  And  my  Lady  Viscountess  said : 

'"Beatrix,  this  is  Mr.  Steele,  gentleman  usher  to  the 
Prince's  Highness.  When  does  your  new  comedy°  appear, 
Mr.  Steele?'  —  I  hope  thou  wilt  be  out  of  prison  for  the  first 
night,  Harry." 

20  The  sentimental  captain  concluded  his  sad  tale,  sajdng, 
"Faith,  the  beauty  of  Filiapulcrior  drove  pulcram  matrem 
out  of  my  head;  and  yet,  as  I  came  down  the  river,  and 
thought  about  the  pair,  the  pallid  dignity  and  exquisite 
grace  of  the  matron  had  the  uppermost,  and  I  thought  her 

25  even  more  noble  than  the  virgin!" 

The  party  of  prisoners  Hved  very  well  in  Newgate,  and 
with  comforts  very  different  to  those  which  were  awarded  to 
the  poor  wretches  there  (his  insensibility  to  their  misery, 
their  gaiety  still  more  frightful,  their  curses  and  blasphemy, 

30  hath  struck  with  a  kind  of  shame  since  —  as  proving  how 
selfish  during  his  imprisonment,  his  own  particular  grief  was, 
and  how  entirely  the  thoughts  of  it  absorbed  him)  :  if  the 
three  gentlemen  lived  well  under  the  care  of  the  Warden  of 
Newgate,  it  was  because  they  paid  well :  and  indeed  the  cost 

35  at  the  dearest  ordinary  or  the  grandest  tavern  in  London 
could  not  liave  furnislied  a  longer  reckoning,  than  our  host  of 
the  Handcuff  Inn  —  as  Colonel  Westbury  called  it.  Our 
rooms  were  the  three  in  the  gate  over  Newgate  —  on  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  185 

second  story  looking  up  Newgate  Street  towards  Cheapside° 
and  Paul's  Church.  And  we  had  leave  to  walk  on  the  roof, 
and  could  see  thence  Smithfield°  and  the  Bluecoat  Boys' 
School,°  Gardens,  and  the  Chartreux,°  where,  as  Harry 
Esmond  remembered,  Dick  the  Scholar,  and  his  friend  Tom  5 
Tusher,  had  had  their  schoohng. 

Harry  could  never  have  paid  his  share  of  that  prodigious 
heavy  reckoning  which  my  landlord  brought  to  his  guests 
once  a  week :  for  he  had  but  three  pieces°  in  his  pockets  that 
fatal  night  before  the  duel,  when  the  gentlemen  were  at  cards,  lo 
and  offered  to  play  five.  But  whilst  he  was  yet  ill  at  the 
Gatehouse,  after  Lady  Castlewood  had  visited  him  there, 
and  before  his  trial,  there  came  one  in  an  orange-tawny  coat 
and  blue  lace,  the  livery  which  the  Esmonds  always  wore,  and 
brought  a  sealed  packet  for  Mr.  Esmond,  which  contained  15 
twenty  guineas,  and  a  note  saying  that  a  counsel  had  been 
appointed  for  him,  and  that  more  money  would  be  forth- 
coming whenever  he  needed  it. 

'Twas  a  queer  letter  from  the  scholar  as  she  was,  or  as  she 
called  herself :  the  Dowager  A^iscountess  Castlewood,  written  20 
in  the  strange  barbarous  French,' which  she  and  many  other 
fine  ladies  of  that  time  —  witness  her  Grace  of  Portsmouth  — 
employed.  Indeed,  spelhng  was  not  an  article  of  general 
commodity  in  the  world  then,  and  my  Lord  Marlborough's 
letters°  can  show  that  he,  for  one,  had  but  a  little  share  of  25 
this  part  of  grammar. 

''MoNG  CoussiN,°"  my  Lady  Viscountess  Dowager  wrote, 
''je  scay  que  vous  vous  etes  bravement  batew  et  grievement 
blessay  —  du  coste  de  feu  M.  le  Vicomte.  M.  le  Compte  de 
Varique  ne  se  playt  qua  parlay  de  vous :  M.  de  ]\Ioon  au9y.  30 
II  di  que  vous  avay  voulew  vous  bastre  avecque  luy  —  que 
vous  estes  plus  fort  que  luy  fur  I'ayscrimme  —  quil'y  a  surtout 
certaine  Botte  c^ue  vous  scavay  quiln'a  jammaysceu  parlay: 
et  que  e'en  eut  ete  fay  de  luy  si  vouseluy  vous  vous  fussiay 
battews  ansamb.  Aincy  ce  pauv  Vicompte  est  mort.  Mort  et  35 
peutaj^t  —  Mon  coussin,  mon  coussin  !  jay  dans  la  tayste  que 
vous  n 'estes  quung  pety  Monst  —  angcy  que  les  Esmonds 
ong  tousjours  este.     La  veuve  est  chay  moy.     J'ay  recuilly 


186  HENRY   ESMOND 

cet'  pauve  famme.  Elle  est  furieuse  cont  vous,  allans  tons  les 
jours  chercher  le  Roy  (d'icy)  demandant  a  gran  cri  revanche 
pour  son  Mary.  Elle  ne  veux  voyre  ni  entende  parlay  de 
vous:  pourtant  elle  ne  fay  qu'en  parlay  milfoy  par  jour. 
5  Quand  vous  seray  hor  prison  venay  me  voyre.  J'auray 
soing  de  vous.  Si  cette  petite  Prude  vent  se  defaire  de  song 
pety  Monste  (Helas  je  craing  quil  ne  soy  trotar ! )  je  m'en 
chargeray.  J 'ay  encor  quelqu  interay  et  quelques  escus  de 
costay. 

10  "La  Veuve  se  raccommode  avec  Miladi  Marlboro  qui  est 
tout  pui^ante  avecque  la  Reine  Anne.  Cet  dam  senteraysent 
pour  la  petite  prude;  qui  pourctant  a  un  fi  du  mesme  asge 
que  vous  savay. 

''En  sortant  de  prisong  venez  icy.     Je  ne  puy  vous  recevoir 

15  chaymoy  a  cause  des  mechansetes  du  monde,  may  pre  du 
moy  vous  aurez  logement. 

"ISABELLE    ViCOMPTESSE    d'EsMOND." 

Marchioness  of  Esmond  this  lady  sometimes  called  herself, 

in  virtue  of  that  patent  which  had  been  given  by  the  late 
20  King  James  to  Harry  Esmond's  father :  and  in  this  state  she 

had  her  train  carried  by  a  knight's  wife,  a  cup  and  cover  of 

assay  °  to  drink  from,  and  fringed  cloth. 

He  who  was  of  the  same  age  as  little  Francis,  whom  we 

shall  henceforth  call  Viscount  Castlewood  here,  was  H.  R.  H. 
25  the  Prince  of  Wales,  born  in  the  same  year  and  month  with 

Frank,°  and  just  proclaimed  at  Saint  Germains,°  King  of 

Great  Britain,  France  and  Ireland. 


CHAPTER  in 

I    TAKE    THE    queen's    PAY    IN    QUIN's    REGIMENT 

The  fellow  in  the  orange-tawny  livery  with  blue  lace  and 

facings  was  in  waiting  when  Esmond  ciime  out  of  prison, 

30  and  taking  the  young  gentleman's  slender  baggage,  led  the 

way  out  of  that  odious  Newgate,  and  by  Fleet  Conduit, ° 

down  to  the  Thames,  where  a  pair  of  oars  was  called,  and 


i 


HENRY   ESMOND  187 

they  went  up  the  river  to  Chelsea.  Esmond  thought  the 
sun  had  never  shone  so  bright ;  nor  the  air  felt  so  fresh  and 
exhilarating.  Temple  Garden, °  as  they  rowed  by,  looked  like 
the  Garden  of  Eden  to  him,  and  the  aspect  of  the  quays, 
wharves,  and  buildings  by  the  river,  Somerset  House,°  and  5 
Westminster  (where  the  splendid  new  bridge°  was  just 
beginning),  Lambeth°  tower  and  palace,  and  that  busy 
shining  scene  of  the  Thames  swarming  with  boats  and  barges, 
filled  his  heart  w^ith  pleasure  and  cheerfulness  —  as  well  such 
a  beautiful  scene  might  to  one  who  had  been  a  prisoner  so  10 
long,  and  with  so  many  dark  thoughts  deepening  the  gloom 
of  his  captivity.  They  rowed  up  at  length  to  the  pretty 
village  of  Chelsea,  where  the  nobility  have  many  handsome 
country-houses;  and  so  came  to  my  Lady  Viscountess's 
house;  a  cheerful  new  house  in  the  row  facing  the  river,  15 
with  a  handsome  garden  behind  it,  and  a  pleasant  look-out 
both  towards  Surrey°  and  Kensington,  where  stands  the 
noble  ancient  palace  of  the  Lord  Warwick,  Harry's  reconciled 
adversary. 

Here  in  her  ladyship's  saloon,  the  young  man  saw  again  20 
some  of  those  pictures  which  had  been  at  Castle  wood,  and 
which  she  had  removed  thence  on  the   death  of  her  lord, 
Harry's  father.     Specially,  and  in  the  place  of  honour,  was 
Sir  Peter  Lely's  picture  of  the  Honourable  Mistress  Isabella 
Esmond  as  Diana,  in  yellow  satin,  with  a  bow^  in  her  hand  25 
and  a  crescent  in  her  forehead ;  and  dogs  frisking  about  her. 
'Twas  painted  about  the  time  when  royal  Endymions  were 
said  to  find  fa^'our  with  this  virgin  huntress  ;  and  as  goddesses 
have  youth  perpetual,  this  one  belie^'ed  to  the  day  of  her 
death  that  she  never  grew  older :    and  always  persisted  in  30 
supposing  the  picture  was  still  like  her. 

After  he  had  been  shown  to  her  room  by  the  groom  of  the 
chamber,  who  filled  many  offices  besides  in  her  ladyship's 
modest  household  ?  and  after  a  proper  interval,  this  elderly 
goddess  Diana  vouchsafed  to  appear  to  the  young  man.  A  35 
blackamoor  in  a  Turkish  habit,  with  red  boots  and  a  silver 
collar  on  which  the  Viscountess's  arms  were  engraven,  pre- 
ceded her  and  bore  her  cushion ;  then  came  her  gentle- 
woman ;   a  httle  pack  of  spaniels  barking  and  frisking  about 


188  HENRY   ESMOND 

preceded  the  austere  huntress  —  then,  behold,  the  Viscountess 
herself  "dropping  odours."  Esmond  recollected  from  his 
childhood  that  rich  aroma  of  musk  which  his  mother-in-law 
(for  she  may  be  called  so)  exhaled.     As  the  sky  grows  redder 

5  and  redder  towards  sunset,  so,  in  the  decline  of  her  years,  the 
cheeks  of  my  Lady  Dowager  blushed  more  deeply.  Her  face 
was  illuminated  with  vermilion,  which  appeared  the  brighter 
from  the  white  paint  employed  to  set  it  off.  She  wore  the 
ringlets  which  had  been  in  fashion  in  King  Charles's  time; 

ro  whereas  the  ladies  of  King  William's  had  head-dresses  like 
the  towers  of  Cybele.°  Her  eyes  gleamed  out  from  the 
midst  of  this  queer  structure  of  paint,  dyes,  and  pomatum.s. 
►Such  was  my  Lady  Viscountess,  Mr.  Esmond's  father's 
widow. 

15  He  made  her  such  a  profound  bow  as  her  dignity  and  rela- 
tionship merited :  and  advanced  with  the  greatest  gravity 
and  once  more  kissed  that  hand  upon  the  trembling  knuckles 
of  which  glittered  a  score  of  rings  —  remembering  old  times 
when  that  trembling  hand  made  him  tremble.     "Marchion- 

20  ess,"  says  he,  bowing,  and  on  one  knee,  "is  it  only  the  hand 
I  may  have  the  honour  of  saluting?"  For,  accompanying 
that  inward  laughter,  which  the  sight  of  such  an  astonishing 

■  old  figure  might  well  produce  in  the  young  man,  there  was 
good-will  too,  and  the  kindness  of  consanguinity.     She  had 

25  been  his  father's  wife,  and  was  his  grandfather's  daughter. 
She  had  suffered  him  in  old  days,  and  was  kind  to  him 
now  after  her  fashion.  And  now  that  bar-sinister°  was 
removed  from  Esmond's  thoughts,  and  that  secret  oppro- 
brium no  longer  cast  upon  his  mind,  he  was  pleased  to  feel 

30  family  ties  and  own  them  —  perhaps  secretly  vain  of  the 
sacrifice  he  had  made,  and  to  think  that  he,  Esmond,  was 
really  the  chief  of  his  house,  and  only  prevented  by  his  own 
magnanimity  from  advancing  his  claim. 

At  least,  ever  since  he  had  learned  that  secret  from  his 

35  poor  patron  on  his  dying  bed,  actually  as  he  was  standing 
beside  it,  he  had  felt  an  independency  which  he  had  never 
known  before,  and  which  since  did  not  desert  him.  So  he 
call(;d  his  old  aunt,  Marcliioness,  but  with  an  air  as  if  he  w&o 
the  Marriuis  of  Esmond  wlio  so  addressed  her. 


HENRY   ESMOND  189 

Did  she  read  in  the  young  gentleman^s  eyes,  which  had 
now  no  fear  of  hers  or  their  superannuated  authority,  that  he 
knew  or  suspected  the  truth  about  his  birth?  She  gave  a 
start  of  surprise  at  his  altered  manner ;  indeed,  it  was  quite 
a  different  bearing  to  that  of  the  Cambridge  student  who  had  5 
paid  her  a  visit  two  years  since,  and  whom  she  had  dismissed 
with  five  pieces  sent  by  the  groom  of  the  chamber.  She  eyed 
him,  then  trembled  a  little  more  than  was  her  wont,  perhaps, 
and  said,  "Welcome,  cousin,''  in  a  frightened  voice. 

His  resolution,  as  has  been  said  before,  had  been  quite  10 
different,  namely,  so  to  bear  himself  through  Mfe  as  if  the 
secret  of  his  birth  was  not  known  to  him ;  but  he  suddenly 
and  rightly  determined  on  a  different  course.  He  asked  that 
her  ladyship's  attendants  should  be  dismissed,  and  when 
they  were  private  —  ''Welcome,  nephew,  at  least,  madam,  it  15 
should  be,"  he  said.  ''A  great  wrong  has  been  done  to  me 
and  to  you,  and  to  my  poor  mother,  who  is  no  more." 

"I  declare  before  Heaven  that  I  was  guiltless  of  it,"  she 
cried  out,  giving  up  her  cause  at  once.  ''It  was  your  wicked 
father  who "  20 

"Who  brought  this  dishonour  on  our  family,"  says  Mr. 
Esmond.  "I  know  it  full  well.  I  want  to  disturb  no  one. 
Those  who  are  in  present  possession  have  been  my  dearest 
benefactors,  and  are  quite  innocent  of  intentional  wrong  to 
me.  The  late  lord,  my  dear  patron,  knew  not  the  truth  until  25 
a  few  months  before  his  death,  when  Father  Holt  brought 
the  news  to  him." 

"The  wretch  !  he  had  it  in  confession  !  He  had  it  in  con- 
fession ! "  cried  out  the  dowager  lady. 

"  Not  so.  He  learned  it  elsewhere  as  well  as  in  confession,"  39 
Mr.  Esmond  answered.  "My  father,  when  wounded  at 
the  Boyne,  told  the  truth  to  a  French  priest,  who  was  in 
hiding  after  the  battle,  as  well  as  to  the  priest  there,  at  whose 
house  he  died.  This  gentleman  did  not  think  fit  to  divulge 
the  story  till  he  met  with  Mr.  Holt  at  Saint  Omer's.°  And  35 
the  latter  kept  it  back  for  his  own  purpose,  and  until  he  had 
learned  whether  my  mother  was  alive  or  no.  She  is  dead 
years  since :  my  poor  patron  told  me  with  his  dying  breath ; 
and  I  doubt  him  not.     I  do  not  know  even  whether  I  ^ould 


190  HENRY   ESMOND 

prove  a  marriage.  I  would  not  if  I  could.  I  do  not  care  to 
bring  shame  on  our  name,  or  grief  upon  those  whom  I  love, 
however  hardly  they  may  use  me.  My  father's  son,  madam, 
won't  aggravate  the  wrong  my  father  did  3^ou.  .  Continue  to 
5  be  his  widow,  and  give  me  your  kindness.  Tis  all  I  ask  from 
you;    and  I  shall  never  speak  of  this  matter  again." 

''Mais  vous  etes  un  noble  jeune  homme!"  breaks  out  my 
lady,  speaking,  as  usual  with  her  when  she  was  agitated,  in  the 
French  language. 

10  ''Noblesse  oblige, °"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  making  her  a  low 
bow.  "There  are  those  alive  to  whom,  in  return  for  their 
love  to  me,  I  often  fondly  said  I  would  give  my  life  away. 
Shall  I  be  their  enemy  now,  and  quarrel  about  a  title  ?  What 
matters  who  has  it?     'Tis  with  the  family  still." 

15  "  What  can  there  be  in  that  little  prude  of  a  w^oman,  that 
makes  men  so  raffoler°  about  her?"  cries  out  my  Lady 
Dowager.  "  She  was  here  for  a  month  petitioning  the  King. 
She  is  pretty,  and  well  conserved ;  but  she  has  not  the  hel  air. 
In  his  late  Majesty's  Court  all  the  men  pretended  to  admire 

20  her ;  and  she  was  no  better  than  a  little  wax  doll.  She  is 
better  now,  and  looks  the  sister  of  her  daughter :  but  what 
mean  you  all  by  bepraising  her  ?  Mr.  Steele,  who  was  in  wait- 
ing on  Prince  George,  seeing  her  with  her  two  children  going 
to  Kensington,  writ  a  poem  about  her ;  and  says  he  shall  wear 

25  her  colours,  and  dress  in  black  for  the  future.  Mr.  Congreve 
says  he  will  write  a  Mourning  Widow,  that  shall  be  better 
than  his  Mourning  Bride  °  Though  their  husbands  quar- 
relled and  fought  when  that  wretch  Churchill  deserted  the 
King°   (for  wnich   he   deserved  to   be   hung°),   Lady  Marl- 

30  borough  has  again  gone  wild  about  the  little  widow ;  insulted 
me  in  my  own  drawing-room,  by  saying  that  'twas  not  the 
old  widow,  but  the  young  \'iscountess,  she  had  come  to  see. 
Little  Castlewood  and  little  Lord  Churchill  are  to  be  sworn 
friends,   and   haxe    boxed    each    other   twice  or  thrice  like 

35  brothers  already.  'Twas  that  wicked  young  Mohun  who,  com- 
ing ba(;k  from  the  i)rovinces  last  year,  where  he  had  disinterred 
her,  raved  about  her  all  the  winter;  said  she  was  a  {)earl  set 
before  swine;  and  killed  poor  stupid  Frank.  The  quarrel 
was  all  about  his  wife.     I  know  'twas  all  about  her.     Was 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  191 

there  anything  between  her  and  Mohun,  nephew?  Tell  me 
now;  was  there  anything?  About  yourself,  I  do  not  ask 
you  to  answer  (^[uestions." 

Mr.  Esmond  blushed  up.  ''My  lady's  virtue  is  like  that 
of  a  saint  in  heaven,  madam,"  he  criecl  out.  5 

"Eh!  —  mon  neveu.°  Many  saints  get  to  heaven  after 
having  a  deal  to  repent  of.  I  believe  you  are  like  all  the  rest 
of  the  fools,  and  madly  in  love  with  her." 

''Indeed,  I  loved  and  honoured  her  before  all  the  world," 
Esmond  answered.     "I  take  no  shame  in  that."  lo 

"And  she  has  shut  her  door  on  you  —  given  the  hving  to 
that  horrid  young  cub,  son  of  that  horrid  old  bear,  Tusher, 
and  says  she  will  never  see  you  more.  ^lonsieur  mon  neveu  — 
we  are  all  like  that.  When  I  was  a  young  woman,  I  am 
positive  that  a  thousand  duels  were  fought  about  me.  And  15 
when  poor  Monsieur  de  Souchy  drowned  himself  in  the  canal 
at  Bruges,  because  I  danced  with  Count  Springbock,  I 
couldn't  squeeze  out  a  single  tear,  but  danced  till  five  o'clock 
the  next  morning.  Twas  the  Count  —  no,  'twas  my  Lord 
Ormond°  that  played  the  fiddles,  and  his  Majesty  did  me  the  20 
honour  of  dancing  all  night  with  me.  —  How  you  are  grown ! 
You  have  got  the  hel  air.  You  are  a  black°  man.  Our 
Esmonds  are  all  black.  The  little  prude's  son  is  fair;  so 
w^as  his  father  —  fair  and  stupid.  You  were  an  ugly  little 
wretch,  when  you  came  to  Castlewood  —  you  were  all  eyes,  25 
like  a  young  crow.  We  intended  you  should  be  a  priest. 
That  awful  Father  Holt  —  how  he  used  to  frighten  me  when 
I  was  ill !  I  have  a  comfortable  director  now  —  the  Abbe 
Douillette  —  a  dear  man.  We  make  meagre°  on  Fridays 
always.  My  cook  is  a  devout,  pious  man.  You,  of  course,  30 
are  of  the  right  way  of  thinking.  They  say  the  Prin(  c  of 
()range°  is  very  ill  indeed." 

In  this  way  the  old  Dowager  rattled  on  remorselessly  to 
Mr.  Esmond,  who  was  quite  astounded  with  her  present 
volubility,  contrasting  it  with  her  former  haughty  behaviour  35 
to  him.  But  she  had  taken  him  into  favour  for  the  moment, 
and  chose  not  only  to  like  him,  as  far  as  her  nature  permitted, 
but  to  be  afraid  of  him  :  and  he  found  himself  to  be  as  familiar 
with  her  now  as  a  voung  man,  as,  when  a  boy,  he  had  been 


192  HENRY  ESMOND 

timorous  and  silent.  She  was  as  good  as  her  word  respecting 
him.  She  introduced  him  to  her  company,  of  which  she 
entertained  a  good  deal  —  of  the  adherents  of  King  James, 
of  com'se  —  and  a  great  deal  of  loud  intriguing  took  place 
5  over  her  card-tables.  She  presented  Mr.  Esmond  as  her 
kinsman  to  many  persons  of  honour;  she  supplied  him  not 
illiberally  with  money,  which  he  had  no  scruple  in 
accepting  from  her,  considering  the  relationship  which  he 
bore  to  her,  and  the  sacrifices  which  he  himself  was  making 

10  in  behalf  of  the  family.  But  he  had  made  up  his  mind  to 
continue  at  no  woman's  apron-strings  longer;  and  perhaps 
had  cast  about  how  he  should  distinguish  himself,  and  make 
himself  a  name,  which  his  singular  fortune  had  denied  him. 
A  discontent  -wnth  his  former  bookish  life  and  quietude,  —  a 

15  bitter  feeling  of  revolt  at  that  slavery  in  which  he  had  chosen 
to  confine  himself  for  the  sake  of  those  whose  hardness 
towards  him  made  his  heart  bleed,  —  a  restless  w^ish  to  see 
men  and  the  world,  —  led  him  to  think  of  the  military  pro- 
fession :  at  any  rate,  to  desire  to  see  a  few  campaigns,   and 

20  accordingly  he  pressed  his  new  patroness  to  get  him  a 
pair  of  colours" ;  and  one  day  had  the  honour  of  finding  him- 
self appointed  an  ensign°  in  Colonel  Quin's  regiment  of 
Fusileers  on  the  Irish  estabhshment. 

Mr.  Esmond's  commission  was  scarce  three  weeks  old  when 

25  that  accident"  befell  King  William  which  ended  the  life  of 
the  greatest,  the  wisest,  the  bra^^est,  and  most  clement 
sovereign  whom  England  ever  knew.  Twas  the  fashion  of 
the  hostile  party  to  assail  this  great  prince's  reputation 
during  his  life;   but  the  joy  which  they  and  all  his  enemies 

30  in  Europe  showed  at  his  death,  is  a  proof  of  the  terror  in 
which  they  held  him.  Young  as  Esmond  was,  he  was  wise 
enough  (and  generous  enough,  too,  let  it  be  said)  to  scorn 
that  indecency  of  gratulation  which  broke  out  amongst  the 
followers  of  King  James  in  London,  upon  the  death  of  this 

35  illustrious  prince,  this  invincible  warrior,  this  wise  and 
moderate  statesman.  Loyalty  to  the  exiled  king's  family 
was  traditional,  as  has  been  said,  in  that  house  to  which 
Mr.  Esmond  belonged.  His  father's  widow  had  all  her  hopes, 
sympathies,     recollections,     prejudices,     engaged    on    King 


HENRY   ESMOND  193 

James's  side;  and  was  certainly  as  noisy  a  conspirator  as 
ever  asserted  the  King's  rights  or  abused  his  opponents, 
over  a  quadrille°  table  or  a  dish  of  bohea.°  Her  ladyship's 
house  swarmed  with  ecclesiasticks,  in  disguise  and  out ;  with 
tale-bearers  from  St.  Germains ;  and  quidnuncs"  that  kne^v  5 
the  last  news  from  Versailles;  nay,  the  exact  force  and 
aumber  of  the  next  expedition  which  the  French  king  was 
to  send  from  Dunkirk, °  and  which  was  to  swallow  up  the 
Prince  of  Orange, °  his  army,  and  his  court.  She  had  received 
the  Duke  of  Berwick"  when  he  landed  here  in  '96.  She  kept  10 
the  glass  he  drank  from,  vowing  she  never  would  use  it  till 
she  drank  King  James  the  Third's  health  in  it  on  His  ^lajesty's 
return;  she  had  tokens  from  the  Queen,  and  relics  of  the 
saint°  who,  if  the  story  was  true,  had  not  always  been  a 
saint  as  far  as  she  and  many  others  were  concerned.  She  15 
believed  in  the  miracles  wrought  at  his  tomb,  and  had  a 
hundred  authentick  stories  of  wondrous  cures  effected  by 
the  blessed  King's  rosaries,  the  medals  which  he  wore, 
the  locks  of  his  hair,  or  what  not.  Esmond  remembered  a 
score  of  marvellous  tales,  which  the  credulous  old  woman  20 
told  him.  There  was  the  Bishop  of  Autun,°  that  was  healed 
of  a  malady  he  had  for  forty  years,  and  which  left  him 
after  he  said  mass  for  the  repose  of  the  King's  soul.  There 
was  M.  IMarais,  a  surgeon  in  Auvergne,°  who  had  a  palsy 
in  both  his  legs,  which  was  cured  through  the  King's  inter-  25 
cession.  There  was  Philip  Pitet,  of  the  Benedictines," 
who  had  a  suffocating  cough,  which  well-nigh  killed  him, 
but  he  besought  relief  of  Heaven,  through  the  merits  and 
intercession  of  the  blessed  King,  and  he  straightway  felt  a 
profuse  sweat  breaking  out  all  over  him,  and  was  recovered  3° 
perfectly.  And  there  was  the  wife  of  Mons.  Lepervier, 
dancing-master  to  the  Duke  of  Saxe-Gotha,"  who  was  entirely 
eased  of  a  rheumatism  by  the  King's  intercession,  of  which 
miracle  there  could  be  no  doubt,  for  her  surgeon  and  his 
apprentice  had  given  their  testimony,  under  oath,  that  they  35 
did  not  in  any  way  contribute  to  the  cure.  Of  these  tales, 
and  a  thousand  like  them,  Mr.  Esmond  believed  as  much  as 
he  chose.  His  kinswoman's  greater  faith  had  swallow  for 
them  all. 


194  HENRY   ESMOND 

The  English  High  Church  party  did  not  adopt  these 
legends.  But  truth  and  honour,  as  they  thought,  bound 
them  to  the  exiled  King's  side;  nor  had  the  banished  family 
any  warmer  supporter  than  that  kind  lady  of  Castlewood, 
5  in  whose  house  Esmond  was  brought  up.  She  influenced 
her  husband,  very  much  more  perhaps  than  my  lord  knew, 
who  admired  his  wife  prodigiously  though  he  might  be  in- 
constant to  her,  and  who,  adverse  to  the  trouble  of  thinking 
himself,  gladly  enough  adopted  the  opinions  which  she  chose 

10  for  him.  To  one  of  her  simple  and  faithful  heart,  allegiance 
to  any  sovereign  but  the  one  was  impossible.  To  serve 
King  William  for  interest's  sake  would  have  been  a  monstrous 
hypocrisy  and  treason.  Her  pure  conscience  could  no  more 
have  consented  to  it  than  to  a  theft,  a  forgery,  or  any  other 

15  base  action.  Lord  Castlewood  might  have  been  won  over, 
no  doubt,  but  his  wife  never  could;  and  he  submitted  his 
conscience  to  hers  in  this  case  as  he  did  in  most  others, 
when  he  was  not  tempted  too  sorely.  And  it  was  from  his 
affection  and  gratitude  most  likely,   and  from  that  eager 

20  devotion  for  his  mistress,  which  characterised  all  Esmond's 
youth,  that  the  young  man  subscribed  to  this,  and  other 
articles  of  faith,  which  his  fond  benefactress,  set  him.  Had 
she  been  a  Whig,  he  had  been  one ;  had  she  followed  Mr. 
Fox,  and  turned  Quaker, °  no  doubt  he  w^ould  have  abjured 

25  ruffles  and  a  perriwig,  and  ha\^e  forsworn  swords,  lace  coats, 
and  clocked  stockings.  In  the  scholars'  boyish  disputes 
at  the  University,  where  parties  ran  very  high,  Esmond  was 
noted  as  a  Jacobite,  and  very  likely  from  vanity  as  much  as 
affection  took  the  side  of  his  family. 

30  Almost  the  whole  of  the  clergy  of  the  country  and  more 
than  a  half  of  the  nation  were  on  this  side.  Ours°  is  the 
most  loyal  people  in  the  world  surely ;  we  admire  our  kings, 
and  are  faithful  to  them  long  after  they  have  ceased  to  be 
true  to  us.     'Tis  a  wonder  to  any  one  who  looks  back  at  the 

35  history  of  the  Stuart  family,  to  think  how  they  kicked  their 
crowns  away  from  them ;  how  they  flung  away  chances  after 
chances ;  what  treasures  of  loyalty  they  dissipated,  and  how 
fatally  they  were  bent  on  consumniating  their  own  ruin. 
If  ever  men  had  fidehty,  'twas  they;  if  ever  men  squandered 


HENRY  ESMOND  195 

opportunity,  'twas  they;    and  of  all  the  enemies  they  had, 
they  themselves  were  the  most  fatal. ^ 

When  the  Princess  Anne  succeeded,  the  wearied  nation 
was  glad  enough  to  cry  a  truce  from  all  these  wars,  con- 
troversies, and  conspiracies,  and  to  accept  in  the  person  of  a  5 
Princess  of  the  blood-royal  a  compromise  between  the  parties 
into  which  the  country  was  divided.  The  Tories  could 
serve  under  her  with  easy  consciences;  though  a  Tory 
herself,  she  represented  the  triumph  of  the  Whig  opinion. 
The  people  of  England,  always  liking  that  their  Princes  10 
should  be  attached  to  their  own  families,  were  pleased  to 
think  the  Princess  was  faithful  to  hers ;  and  up  to  the  very 
last  day  and  hour  of  her  reign,  and  but  for  that  fatality  which 
he  inherited  from  his  fathers  along  with  their  claims  to  the 
English  crown,  King  James  the  Third  might  have  worn  it.  15 
But  he  neither  knew  how  to  wait  an  opportunity  nor  to 
use  it  when  he  had  it;  he  was  venturesome  when  he  ought 
to  have  been  cautious,  and  cautious  when  he  ought  to  have 
dared  everything.  Tis  with  a  sort  of  rage  at  his  inaptitude 
that  one  thinks  of  his  melancholy  story.  Do  the  Fates  20 
deal  more  specially  with  kings  than  with  common  men  ? 
One  is  apt  to  imagine  so,  in  considering  the  history  of  that 
royal  race,  in  whose  behalf  so  much  fidelity,  so  much  \'alour, 
so  much  blood  were  desperately  and  bootlessly  expended. 

The  King  dead  then,  the  Princess  Anne  (ugly  Anne  Hyde's  25 
daughter,^  our  dowager  at  Chelsea  called  her)  was  pioclaimed 
oy  trumpeting  heralds  all  over  the   town  from  Westminster 
to  Ludgate  Hill,°  amidst  immense  jubilations  of  the  people. 

Next  week  my  Lord  Marlborough  was  promoted  to  the 
Garter°  and  to  be  Captain-General  of  her  Majesty's  forces  30 
at  home  and  abroad.  This  appointment  only  inflamed  the 
Dowager's  rage,  or,  as  she  thought  it,  her  fidelity  to  her 
rightful  sovereign.  ''The  Princess  is  but  a  puppet  in  the 
hands  of  that  fury  of  a  woman,  °  who  comes  into  my  drawing- 
room  and  insults  me  to  my  face.  What  can  come  to  a  35 
country  that  is  given  over  to  such  a  woman?"     says  the 

1    12  TTOTTOi,  olov  8rj  vv  deovs  ^porol  alTLOojvTaL- 
i^  rjpi^cov  yap  (paai  kclk  €/x/xepai,  oi  5e  /cat  avTol 
acpTjaiv  aTa<rda\lTj(xi.v  virep  jxdpov  d\7e'  exov(Tiv° 


196  HENRY   ESMOND 

Dowager.  ''As  for  that  double-faced  traitor,  my  Lord 
IMarlborough,  he  has  betrayed  every  man  and  every  woman 
with  whom  he  has  had  to  deal,  except  his  horrid  wiffe  who 
makes  him  tremble.  Tis  all  over  with  the  country  when  it 
5  has  got  into  the  clutches  of  such  wretches  as  these." 

Esmond's  old  kinswoman  saluted  the  new  powers  in  this 
way;  but  some  good  fortune  at  last  occurred  to  a  family 
which  stood  in  great  need  of  it,  by  the  advancement  of  these 
famous  personages  who  benefited  humbler  people  that  had 

10  the  luck  of  being  in  their  favour.  Before  Mr.  Esmond  left 
England  in  the  month  of  August,  and  being  then  at  Ports- 
mouth°  where  he  had  joined  his  regiment,  and  was  busy  at 
drill,  learning  the  practice  and  mysteries  of  the  musket  and 
pike,  he  heard  that  a  pension  on  the  Stamp  Office  had  been 

15  got  for  his  late  beloved  mistress,  and  that  the  young  IMistress 
Beatrix  was  also  to  be  taken  into  Court,  So  much  good,  at 
least,  had  come  out  of  the  poor  widow's  visit  to  London,  not 
revenge  upon  her  husband's  enemies,  but  reconcilement  to 
old  friends,  who  pitied,  and  seemed  inclined   to  serve  her. 

20  As  for  the  comrades  in  prison  and  the  late  misfortune : 
Colonel  Westbury  was  with  the  Captain-General °  gone  to 
Holland;  Captain  Macartney  was  now  at  Portsmouth,  with 
his  regiment  of  Fusi leers  and  the  force  under  command 
of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Ormond,  bound  for  Spain  it  was 

25  said;  my  Lord  Warwick  was  returned  home;  and  Lord 
Mohun,  so  far  from  being  punished  for  the  homicide  which 
had  brought  so  much  grief  and  change  into  the  Esmond 
family,  was  gone  in  company  of  my  Lord  Macclesfield's 
splendid  embassy°  to  the  Elector  of  Hanover,  carrying  the 

30  CJarter  to  his  Highness  and  a  complimentary  letter  from  the 
Queen. 


CHAPTER  IV 

RECAPITUT-ATIONS 

From  such  fitful  lights  as  could  be  cast  upon  his  dark 
liistory  by  the  broken  narrative  of  his  poor  patron,   torn 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  197 

by  remorse  and  struggling  in  the  last  pangs  of  dissolution, 
Mr.  Esmond  had  been  made  to  understand  so  far,  that  his 
mother  was  long  since  dead ;  and  so  there  could  be  no  question 
as  regarded  her  or  her  honour,  tarnished  by  her  husband's 
desertion  and  injur}^,  to  influence  her  son  in  any  steps  which  5 
he  might  take  either  for  prosecuting  or  relinquishing  his 
own  just  claims.  It  appeared  from  my  poor  lord's  hurried 
confession,  that  he  had  been  made  acquainted  with  the  real 
facts  of  the  case  only  two  years  since,  when  Mr.  Holt  visited 
him,  and  would  have  implicated  him  in  one  of  those  many  10 
conspiracies  by  which  the  secret  leaders  of  King  James's 
party  in  this  country  were  ever  endeavouring  to  destroy  the 
Prince  of  Orange's  life  or  power  ;  conspiracies  so  like  murder, 
so  cowardly  in  the  means  used,  so  wicked  in  the  end,  that  our 
nation  has  sure  done  well  in  throwing  off  all  allegiance  and  15 
fidelity  to  the  unhappy  family  that  could  not  vindicate  its 
right  except  by  such  treachery,  —  by  such  dark  intrigue  and 
base  agents.  There  were  designs  against  King  AA'ilham  that 
were  no  more  honourable  than  the  ambushes  of  cut-thi-oats 
and  footpads.  'Tis  humiliating  to  think  that  a  great  Prince,  20 
possessor  of  a  great  and  sacred  right,  and  upholder  of  a  great 
cause,  should  have  stooped  to  such  baseness  of  assassination 
and  treasons  as  are  proved  by  the  unfortunate  King  James's 
own  warrant  and  sign-manual  given  to  his  supporters  in 
this  country.  What  he  and  they  called  levying  war  was,  25 
in  truth,  no  better  than  instigating  murder.  The  noble 
Prince  of  Orange  burst  magnanimously  through  those 
feeble  meshes  of  conspiracy  in  which  his  enemies  tried  to 
envelop  him :  it  seemed  as  if  their  cowardly  daggers  broke 
upon  the  breast  of  his  undaunted  resolution.  After  King  30 
James's  death,  the  Queen  and  her  people  at  St.  Germains  — 
priests  and  women,  for  the  most  part  —  continued  their 
intrigues  in  behalf  of  the  young  Prince,  James  the  Third,  as 
he  was  called  in  France  and  by  his  party  here  (this  Prince,  or 
Chevalier  de  St.  George,  was  born  in  the  same  year  with  35 
Esmond's  young  pupil  Frank,  my  Lord  discount's  son) : 
and  the  Prince's  affairs,  being  in  the  hands  of  priests  and 
women,  were  conducted  as  priests  and  women  will  conduct 
them,  artfully,  cruelly,  feebly,  and  to  a  certain  bad  issue. 


198  HENRY   ESMOND 

The  moral  of  the  Jesuits'  story  I  think  as  wholesome  a  one 
as  ever  was  writ :  the  artfullest,  the  wisest,  the  most  toilsome, 
and  dexterous  plot-builders  in  the  world,  —  there  always 
comes  a  day  when  the  roused  publick  indignation  kicks 
5  their  flimsy  edifice  down,  and  sends  its  cowardly  enemies 
a-flying.  Mr.  Swift°  hath  finely  described  that  passion  for 
intrigue,  that  love  of  secrecy,  slander  and  lying,  which 
belongs  to  weak  people,  hangers-on  of  weak  courts.  'Tis 
the  nature  of  such  to  hate  and  envy  the  strong,  and  conspire 

10  their  ruin ;  and  the  conspiracy  succeeds  very  well,  and  every- 
thing presages  the  satisfactory  overthrow  of  the  great 
\^ctim ;  until  one  day  Gulliver  rouses  himself,  shakes  off  the 
little  vermin  of  an  enemy,  and  walks  away  unmolested. 
Ah  !  the  Irish  soldiers  might  well  say  after  the  Boyne, ''  Change 

15  kings  with  us,  and  we  will  fight  it  over  again."  Indeed, 
the  fight  was  not  fair  between  the  two.  Twas  a  weak, 
priest-ridden,  v/oman-ridden  man,  with  such  puny  allies 
and  weapons  as  his  own  poor  nature  led  him  to  choose, 
contending  against  the  schemes,  the  generalship,  the  wisdom, 

20  and  the  heart  of  a  hero. 

On  one  of  these  many  coward's  errands,  then  (for,  as  I 
view  them  now,  I  can  call  them  no  less),  Mr.  Holt  had  come 
to  my  lord  at  Castle  wood,  proposing  some  infallible  plan  for 
the  Prince  of  Orange's  destruction,  in  which  my  Lord  Vis- 

<5  count,  loyalist  as  he  was,  had  indignantly  refused  to  join. 
As  far  as  ^Ir.  Esmond  could  gather  from  his  d3''ing  words, 
Holt  came  to  my  lord  with  a  plan  of  insurrection,  and  offer 
of  the  renewal,  in  his  person,  of  that  marquis's  title,  which 
King  James  had  conferred  on  the  preceding  viscount;    and 

30  on  refusal  of  this  bribe,  a  threat  was  made,  on  Holt's  part, 
to  upset  my  Lord  Viscount's  claim  to  his  estate  and  title  of 
Castle  wood  altogether.  To  back  this  astounding  piece  of 
intelligence,  of  which  Henry  Esmond's  [)atron  now  had  the 
first  light,  Holt  came  armed  with  the  late  lord's  dying  declara- 

35  tion,  after  the  affair  of  the  Boyne,  at  Trim,  in  Ii-eland,  made 
both  to  the  Irish  pric^st  and  a  French  ecclesiastick  of  Holt's 
order,  that  was  with  King  James's  army.  Holt  showed,  or 
pretended  to  show,  tli(>  marriag(;  certificate  of  the  late  Viscount 
Esmond  with  my  mother,  in  the  city  of  Brussels,  in  the  year 


HENRY   ESMOND  199 

1677,  when  the  Viscount,  then  Thomas  Esmond,  was  serving 
with  the  Enghsh  army  in  Flanders;  he  could  show,  he  said, 
that  this  Gertrude,  deserted  by  her  husband  long  since, 
was  alive,  and  a  professed  nun  in  the  year  1685,  at  Brussels, 
in  which  year  Thomas  Esmond  married  his  uncle's  daughter,  5 
Isabella,  now  called  Viscountess  Dowager  of  Castlewood; 
and  leaving  him,  for  twelve  hours,  to  consider  this  astounding 
news  (so  the  poor  dying  lord  said),  disappeared  with  his 
papers  in  the  mysterious  way  in  which  he  came.  Esmond 
knew  how,  well  enough :  by  that  window  from  which  he  had  10 
seen  the  Father  issue  :  —  but  there  was  no  need  to  explain  to 
my  poor  lord,  only  to  gather  from  his  parting  hps  the  words 
which  .he  would  soon  be  able  to  utter  no  more. 

Ere  the  twelve  hours  were  over.  Holt  himself  was  a  prisoner, 
implicated  in  Sir  John  Fenwick's  conspiracy,  and  locked  up  at  15 
Hexton  first,  whence  he  was  transferred  to  the  Tower  ;  leaving 
the  poor  Lord  Viscount,  who  was  not  aware  of  the  other's 
beii^g  taken,  in  daily  apprehension  of  his  return,  when  (as 
my  Lord  Castlewood  declared,  calling  God  to  witness,  and 
with  tears  in  his  dying  eyes)  it  had  been  his  intention  at  once  20 
to  give  up  his  estate  and  his  title  to  their  proper  owner,  and 
to  retire  to  his  own  house  at  Walcote  with  his  family.  "And 
would  to  God  I  had  done  it,^'  the  poor  lord  said.  "I  would 
not  be  here  now,  wounded  to  death,  a  miserable,  stricken 
man!"  25 

My  lord  waited  day  after  day,  and,  as  may  be  supposed, 
no  messenger  came;  but  at  a  month's  end  Holt  got  means 
to  convey  to  him  a  message  out  of  the  Tower,  which  was  to 
this  effect.:  That  he  should  consider  all  unsaid  that  had 
been  said,  and  that  things  were  as  they  were.  30 

"I  had  a  sore  temptation,"  said  my  poor  lord.  "Since  I 
had  come  into  this  cursed  title  of  Castlewood,  which  hath 
never  prospered  with  me,  I  have  spent  far  more  than  the 
income  of  that  estate,  and  m^y  paternal  one,  too.  I  cal- 
culated all  my  means  down  to  the  last  shilling,  and  found  I  35 
never  could  pay  you  back,  my  poor  Harry,  whose  fortune 
I  had  had  for  twelve  years.  ]\ly  wife  and  children  must 
have  gone  out  of  the  house  dishonoured,  and  beggars.  God 
knows,  it  hath  been  a  miserable  one  for  me  and  mine.     I-ike  a 


200  HEyRY   ESMO^W 

coward,  I  clung  to  that  respite  which  Holt  gave  me.  \ 
kept  the  truth  from  Rachel  and  you.  I  tried  to  win  money 
of  Mohun,  and  only  plunged  deeper  into  debt;  I  scarce 
dared  look  thee  in  the  face  when  I  saw  thee.°  This  sword 
5  hath  been  hanging  over  my  head  °  these  two  years.  I  swear 
I  felt  happy,  when  Mohun's  blade  entered  my  side." 

After  lying  ten  months  in  the  Tower,  Holt,  against  whom 
nothing  could  be  found,  except  that  he  was  a  Jesuit  priest, 
known  to  be  in  King  James's  interest,  was  put  on  shipboard 

lo  by  the  incorrigible  forgiveness  of  King  William,  who  pro- 
mised him,  however,  a  hanging,  if  ever  he  should  again  set 
foot  on  English  shore.     More  than  once,  whilst  he  was  in 

•  prison  himself,  Esmond  had  thought  where  those  papers 
could  be,  which  the  Jesuit  had  shown  to  his  patron,  and 

15  which  had  such  an  interest  for  himself.  They  were  not 
found  on  Mr.  Holt's  person  when  that  Father  was  appre- 
hended, for  had  such  been  the  case  my  lords  of  the  council  had 
seen  them,  and  this  family  history  had  long  since  been  made 
publick.     However,  Esmond  cared  not  to  seek  the  papers. 

20  His  resolution  being  taken;  his  poor  mother  dead;  what 
matter  to  him  that  documents  existed  proving  his  right 
to  a  title  which  he  was  determined  not  to  claim,  and  of 
which  he  vowed  never  to  deprive  that  family  which  he 
loved  best  in  the  world?     Perhaps  he  took  a  greater  pride 

25  out  of  his  sacrifice  than  he  would  have  had  in  those  honours 
which  he  was  resolved  to  forgo.  Again,  as  long  as  these 
titles  were  not  forthcoming,  Esmond's  kinsman,  dear  young 
Francis,  was  the  honourable  and  undisputed  owner  of  the 
Castlewood  estate  and  title.    The  mere  word  of  a  Jesuit  could 

10  not  overset  Frank's  right  of  occupancy,  and  so  Esmond's  mind 
felt  actually  at  ease  to  think  the  papers  were  missing,  and 
in  their  absence  his  dear  mistress  and  her  son  the  lawful 
Lady  and  Lord  of  Castlewood. 

Very  soon  after  his  liberation,  Mr.  Esmond  made  it  his 

35  business  to  ride  to  that  vilhigo  of  Ealing  where  he  had  passed 
his  earliest  years  in  this  countiy,  and  to  see  if  his  old  guar- 
dians were  still  alive  and  inhabitants  of  that  place.  But 
the  only  reli(iuc  which  lie  found  of  old  M.  Pastoureau  was  a 
stone  in  the  churchyard,  which  told  that  Athanasius  Pastou- 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  201 

reau,  a  native  of  Flanders,  lay  there  buried,  aged  87  years. 
The  old  man's  cottage,  which  Esmond  perfectly  recollected, 
and  the  garden  (where  in  his  childhood  he  had  passed  many 
hours  of  play  and  reverie,  and  had  many  a  beating  from 
his  termagant  of  a  foster-mother),  were  now  in  the  occupa-  5 
tion  of  quite  a  different  family ;  and  it  was  with  difficulty  that 
he  could  learn  in  the  village  what  had  come  of  Pastoureau's 
widow  and  children.  The  clerk  of  the  parish  recollected 
her  —  the  old  man  was  scarce  altered  in  the  fourteen  years 
that  had  passed  since  last  Esmond  set  eyes  on  him  —  it  10 
appeared  she  had  pretty  soon  consoled  herself  after  the  death 
of  her  old  husband,  whom  she  ruled  over,  by  taking  a  new 
one  younger  than  herself,  who  spent  her  money  and  ill- 
treated  her  and  her  children.  The  girl  died;  one  of  the 
boys  'listed ;  the  other  had  gone  apprentice. °  Old  Mr.  Rogers,  15 
the  clerk,  said  he  had  heard  that  Mrs.  Pastoureau  was  dead 
too.  She  and  her  husband  had  left  Ealing  this  seven  year; 
and  so  Mr.  Esmond's  hopes  of  gaining  any  information  regard- 
ing his  parentage  from  this  family,  were  brought  to  an  end. 
He  gave  the  old  clerk  a  crown-piece  for  his  news,  smiling  20 
to  think  of  the  time  when  he  and  his  little  playfellows  had 
slunk  out  of  the  churchyard,  or  hidden  behind  the  gravestones 
at  the  approach  of  this  awful  authority. 

Who  was  his  mother  ?  What  had  her  name  been  ?  When 
did  she  die  ?  Esmond  longed  to  find  some  one  who  could  25 
answer  these  ciuestions  to  him,  and  thought  even  of  put- 
ting them  to  his  aunt  the  Viscountess,  who  had  innocently 
taken  the  name  which  belonged  of  right  to  Henry's  mother. 
But  she  knew  nothing,  or  chose  to  know  nothing,  on  this 
subject,  nor,  indeed,  could  Mr,  Esmond  press  her  much  to  30 
speak  on  it.  Father  Holt  was  the  only  man  who  could 
enlighten  him,  and  Esmond  felt  he  must  wait  until  some 
fresh  chance  or  new  intrigue  might  put  him  face  to  face  with 
his  old  friend,  or  bring  that  restless  indefatigable  spirit 
back  to  England  again.  35 

The  appointment  to  his  ensigncy,  and  the  preparations 
necessary  for  the  campaign,  presently  gave  the  young 
gentleman  other  matters  to  think  of.  His  new  patroness 
treated  him   very  kindly  and   liberally;    she   promised   to 


202  HENRY  ESMOND 

make  interest  and  pay  money,  too,  to  get  him  a  company- 
speedily;  she  bade  him  procure  a  handsome  outfit,  both  of 
clothes  and  of  arms,  and  was  pleased  to  admire  him  when 
he  made  his  first  appearance  in  his  laced  scarlet  coat,  and  to 
5  permit  him  to  salute  her  on  the  occasion  of  this  interesting 
investiture.  "Red,"  says  she,  tossing  up  her  old  head, 
"hath  alway^s  been  the  colour  worn  by  the  Esmonds/'  And 
so  her  ladyship  wore  it  on  her  own  cheeks  very  faithfully 
to  the  last.     She  would  have  him  be  dressed,  she  said,  as 

10  became  his  father's  son,  and  paid  cheerfully  for  his  five- 
pound  beaver,  his  black  buckled  perriwig,  and  his  fine 
holland  shirts,  and  his  swords,  and  his  pistols,  mounted 
with  silver.  Since  the  day  he  was  born,  poor  Harry  had 
never  looked  such  a  fine  gentleman :   his  liberal  stepmother 

15  filled  his  purse  with  guineas,  too,  some  of  which  Captain 
Steele  and  a  few  choice  spirits  helped  Harry  to  spend  in  an 
entertainment  which  Dick  ordered  (and,  indeed,  would 
have  paid  for,  but  that  he  had  no  money  when  the  I'eckoning 
was  called  for;    nor  would  the  landlord  give  him  any  more 

20  credit)  at  the  Garter,  over  against  the  gate  of  the  Palace, 
in  Pall  Mall  ° 

The  old  Viscountess,  indeed,  if  she  had  done  Esmond  any 
wrong  formerly,  seemed  inclined  to  repair  it  by  the  present 
kindness   of  her   behaviour :    she   embraced   him   copiously 

25  at  parting,  wept  plentifully,  bade  him  write  by  every  packet, 
and  gave  him  an  inestimable  relick,  which  she  besought 
him  to  wear  round  his  neck  —  a  mctlal,  blessed  by  I  know 
not  what  Pope,  and  worn  by  his  late  sacred  Majesty  King 
James.     So  Esmond  arrived  at  his  regiment  with  a  better 

30  equipage  than  most  young  officers  could  afford.  He  was 
older  than  most  of  his  seniors,  and  had  a  further  advantage 
which  belonged  but  to  very  fcnv  of  the  army  gentlemen  in 
his  day  —  many  of  whom  could  do  little  more  than  write  their 
names  —  that  he  had  read  much,  both  at  home  and  at  the 

35  University,  was  master  of  two  or  three  languages,  and  had 
that  further  education  which  neither  books  nor  years  will  give, 
Init  which  some  men  get  from  the  silent  teaching  of  adver- 
sity. She  is  a  great  schoohnistress,  as  many  a  poor  fellow 
knows,  that  hath  iield  his  hand  out  to  h(M-  ferule,  and  whim- 
pered over  his  lesson  before  her  awful  chair. 


HENRY   ESMOND  203 


CHAPTER  V 

I   GO    ON   THE   VIGO    BAY   EXPEDITION,  TASTE  SALT-WATER  AND 
SMELL    POWDER 

The  first  expedition  in  which  Mr.  Esmond  had  the  honour 
to  be  engaged,  rather  resembled  one  of  the  invasions  projected 
by  the  redoubted  Captain  Avory,  or  Captain  Kid,°  than  a 
war  between  crowned  heads,  carried  on  by  generals  of  rank 
and  honour.  On  the  first  day  of  July,  1702,  a  great  fleet,  5 
of  a  hundred  and  fifty  sail,  set  sail  from  Spithead,°  under 
the  command  of  Admiral  Shovell,°  having  on  board  12,000 
troops,  with  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Ormond  as  the  Capt.- 
General  of  the  expedition.  One  of  these  12,000  heroes 
having  never  been  to  sea  before,  or,  at  least,  only  once  in  10 
his  infancy,  when  he  made  the  voA^age  to  England  from  that 
unknown  country  where  he  was  born,  —  one  of  those  1 2,000 

—  the  junior  ensign  of  Col.  Quin's  regiment  of  Fusileers  — 
was  in  a  quite  unheroic  state  of  corporal  prostration  a  few 
hours  after  sailing;  and  an  enemy,  had  he  boarded  the  ship,  15 
would  have  had  easy  work  of  him.  From  Portsmouth^ 
we  put  into  Plymouth,  and  took  in  fresh  reinforcements. 
We  were  off  Finisterre  on  the  31st  of  July,  so  Esmond's 
table-book  informs  him ;  and  on  the  8th  of  August  made 
the  rock  of  Lisbon.  By  this  time  the  ensign  was  grown  as  20 
bold  as  an  admiral,  and  a  week  afterwards  hod  the  fortune 
to  be  under  fire  for  the  first  time,  —   and  under  water,  too, 

—  his  boat  being  swamped  in  the  surf  in  Toros  bay,  where 
the  troops  landed.     The  ducking  of  his  new  coat  was  all  the 
harm  the  young  soldier   got  in  this  expedition,  for,  indeed,  25 
the  Spaniards  made  no  stand  before  our  troops,  and  were 
not  in  strength  to  do  so. 

But  the  campaign,  if  not  very  glorious,  was  very  pleasant. 
New  sights  of  nature,  by  sea  and  land,  —  a  Hfe  of  action, 
beginning,  now,  for  the  first  time,  —  occupied  and  excited  t^q 
the  young  man.  The  many  accidents,  and  the  routine 
of  shipboard,  —  the  military  duty,  —  the  new  acquaint- 
ances, both  of  his  comrades  in  armS;  and  of  the  officers  of 


204  HEXBY   ESMOND 

the  fleet,  served  to  cheer  and  occupy  his  mind,  and  waken 
it  out  of  that  selfish  depression  into  which  his  late  unhappy 
fortunes  had  plunged  him.  He  felt  as  if  the  ocean  separated 
him  from  his  past  care,  and  welcomed  the  new  era  of  Ufe 
5  which  was  dawning  for  him.  Wounds  heal  rapidly  in  a 
heart  of  two-and-twenty ;  hopes  revive  daily;  and  courage 
rallies,  in  spite  of  a  man.  Perhaps,  as  Esmond  thought  of 
his  late  despondency  and  melancholy,  and  how  irremedi- 
able it   had    seemed  to  him,  as  he  lay  in  his  prison  a  few 

10  months  back,  he  was  almost  mortified  in  his  secret  mind  at 
finding  himself  so  cheerful. 

To  see  with  one's  own  eyes  men  and  countries,  is  better 
than  reading  all  the  books  of  travel  in  the  world;  and  it 
was  with  extreme  delight  and  exultation  that  the  young 

15  man  found  himself  actually  on  his  grand  tour,  and  in  the 
view  of  people  and  cities  which  he  had  read  about  as  a  boy. 
He  beheld  war,  for  the  first  time  —  the  pride,  pomp,  and 
circumstance  of  it,  at  least,  if  not  much  of  the  danger.  He 
saw  actually,  and  with  his  own  eyes,  those  Spanish  cavaliers 

20  and  ladies  whom  he  had  beheld  in  imagination  in  that 
immortal  story  of  Cervantes, °  which  had  been  the  delight 
of  his  youthful  leisure.  Tis  forty  j^ears  since  Mr.  Esmond 
witnessed  those  scenes,  but  they  remain  as  fresh  in  his  memory 
as  on  the  day  when  first  he  saw  them  as  a  young  man.     A 

25  cloud,  as  of  grief,  that  had  lowered  over  him,  and  had  wrapped 
the  last  years  of  his  life  in  gloom,  seemed  to  clear  away 
from  Esmond  during  this  fortunate  voyage  and  campaign. 
His  energies  seemed  to  awaken  and  to  expand,  under  a  cheer- 
ful sense  of  freedom.     Was  his  heart  secretly  glad  to  have 

30  escaped  from  that  fond  but  ignoble  bondage  at  home  ? 
Was  it  that  the  inferiority  to  which  the  idea  of  his  base  birth 
had  compelled  him,  vanished  with  the  knowledge  of  that 
secret,  which  though,  perforce,  kept  to  himself,  was  yet 
enough   to   cheer   and   console   him  ?     At   any  rate,   young 

35  Esmond  of  the  ai-my  was  quite  a  different  being  to  the  sad 
little  dep(Mident  of  the  kind  Castlewood  household,  and 
the  melaiiclioly  student  of  Trinity  Walks° ;  discontented 
with  his  fate,  and  with  the  vocation  into  wliich  that  drove 
him,  and  thinking,  with  a  secret  indignation,  that  the  cassock 


HENRY   ESMOND  205 

and  bands,  and  the  very  sacred  office  with  which  he  had 
once  proposed  to  invest  himself,  were,  in  fact,  but  marks 
of  a  servitude  which  was  to  continue  all  his  life  long.  For, 
disguise  it  as  he  might  to  himself,  he  had  all  along  felt  that 
to  be  Castle  wood's  chaplain  was  to  be  Castle  wood's  inferior  5 
still,  and  that  his  hfe  was  but  to  be  a  long,  hopeless  servitude. 
So,  indeed,  he  was  far  from  grudging  his  old  friend  Tom 
Tusher's  good  fortune  (as  Tom  no  doubt,  thought  it). 
Had  it  been  a  mitre  and  Lambeth°  which  his  friends  offered 
him,  and  not  a  small  living  and  a  country  parsonage,  he  k 
would  have  felt  as  much  a  slave  in  one  case  as  in  the  other, 
and  was  quite  happy  and  thankful  to  be  free. 

The  bravest  man  I  ever  knew  in  the  army,  and  who  had 
been  present  in  most  of  King  William's  actions,  as  well  as 
in  the  campaigns  of  the  great  Duke  of  Marlborough,  could  t: 
never  be  got  to  tell  us  of  any  achievement  of  his,  except 
that  once  Prince  Eugene°  ordered  him  up  a  tree  to  recon- 
noitre the  enemy,  which  feat  he  could  not  achieve  on  account 
of  the  horseman's  boots  he  wore;    and  on  another  day  that 
he  was  very  nearly  taken  prisoner  because  of  these  jack-  2c 
boots,  which  prevented  him  from  running  away.     The  pre- 
sent narrator  shall  imitate  this  laudable  reserve,  and  doth 
not  intend  to  dwell  upon  his  military  exploits,  which  were, 
in  truth,  not  very  different  from  those  of  a  thousand  other 
gentlemen.     This   first    campaign    of   ]\Ir.    Esmond's   lasted  2: 
but  a  few  days;   and  as  a  score  of  books  have  been  written 
concerning  it,  it  may  be  dismissed  very  briefly  here. 

When  our  fleet  came  within  view  of  Cadiz,°  our  com- 
mander sent  a  boat  with  a  white  flag  and  a  couple  of  officers 
to  the  Governor  of  Cadiz,  Don  Scipio  de  Brancaccio,  with  3c 
a  letter  from  his  Grace,  in  which  he  hoped  that  as  Don 
Scipio  had  formerly  served  with  the  Austrians  against 
the  French,  'twas  to  be  hoped  that  his  Excellency 
would  now  declare  himself  against  the  French  king  and  for 
the  Austrian  in  the  war  between  King  Philip  and  King  35 
Charles. °  But  his  Excellency,  Don  Scipio,  prepared  a  reply, 
in  which  he  announced  that,  having  served  his  former  king 
with  honour  and  fidelity,  he  hoped  to  exhibit  the  same 
loyalty  and  devotion  towards  his  present  sovereign,   King 


206  HENRY    ESMOND 

Philip  V ;  and  by  the  time  this  letter  was  ready,  the  officers, 
who  had  been  taken  to  see  the  town,  and  the  alameda,^ 
and  the  theatre,  where  bull-fights  are  fought,  and  the  con- 
vents, where  the  admirable  works  of  Don  Bartholomew 
5  Murillo°  inspired  one  of  them  with  a  great  wonder  and 
delight  —  such  as  he  had  never  felt  before  —  concerning 
this  divine  art  of  painting;  and  these  sights  over,  and  a 
handsome  refection  and  chocolate  being  served  to  the  Eng- 
lish gentlemen,  they  v,^ere  accompanied  back  to  their  shallop 

xo  with  every  courtesy,  and  were  the  only  two  officers  of  the 
English  army  that  saw  at  that  time  that  famous  city. 

The  General  tried  the  power  of  another  proclamation  on 
the  Spaniards,  in  which  he  announced  that  we  only  came 
in  the  interest  of  Spain  and  King  Charles,  and  for  ourselves 

15  wanted  to  make  no  conquest  or  settlement  in  Spain  at  all. 
But  all  this  eloquence  was  lost  upon  the  Spaniards,  it  would 
seem :  the  Captain-General  of  Andalusia°  would  no  more 
hsten  to  us  than  the  Governor  of  Cadiz ;  and  in  reply  to 
his  Grace's  proclamation,  tlie  Marquis  of  Villadarias  fired  off 

20  another,  which  those  who  knew  the  Spanish  thought  rather 
the  best  of  the  two ;  and  of  this  number  was  Harry  Esmond, 
whose  kind  Jesuit  in  old  days  hrd  instructed  him,  and  now 
had  the  honour  of  translating  for  his  Grace  these  hariiiless 
documents  of  war.     There  was  a  hard  touch  for  his  Grace, 

25  and,  indeed,  for  other  generals  in  her  Majesty's  service,  in 
the  concluding  sentence  of  the  Don.  "That  he  and  his 
council  had  the  generous  example  of  their  ancestors  to 
follow,  who  had  never  yet  sought  their  elevation  in  the  blood 
or  in  the  flight  of  their  kings.     'Mori  pro  patria°'  was  his 

30  device,  which  the  Duke  might  communicate  to  the  Princess 
who  governed  England." 

Whether  the  trooi)s  were  angry  at  this  repartee  or  no,  'tis 
certain  something  put  them  in  a  fury,  for  not  being  able  to 
get  possession  of  Cadiz,  our  peoi)le  seized  upon   Port  Saint 

35  Mary's°  and  sacked  it,  burning  down  the  merchants'  store- 
houses, getting  drunk  with  the  famous  wines  there;  pil- 
laging and  robbing  quiet  houses  and  convents,  murdering 
and  doing  worse.  And  the  only  blood  which  Mr.  Esmond 
drew  in  this  shameful  campaign,  was  the  knocking  down  an 


HENRY    ESMOND  2^)1 

English  sentinel  with  a  half-pike,  who  was  offering  insult  to 
a  poor  trembling  nun.  Is  she  going  to  turn  out  a  beauty  ? 
—  or  a  princess°  ?  —  or  perhaps  Esmond's  mother  that  he  had 
lost  and  never  seen  ?  Alas  no,  it  was  but  a  poor  wheezy  old 
dropsical  woman,  with  a  wart  upon  her  nose.  But  having  5 
been  early  taught  a  part  of  the  Roman  religion,  he  never  had 
the  horror  of  it  that  some  Protestants  have  shown  and  seem 
to  think  to  be  a  part  of  ours. 

After  the  pillage  and  plunder  of  St.  Mary's,  and  an  assault 
upon  a  fort  or  two,  the  troops  all  took  shipping  and  finished  ic 
their  expedition,  at  any  rate  more  brilliantly  than  it  had 
begun.     Hearing  that  the  French  fleet  with  a  great  treasure 
was  in  Vigo  Bay,°  our  Admirals,  Rooke  and  Hopson,  pursued 
the  enemy  thither;   the  troops  landed  and  carried  the  forts 
that  protected  the  bay,  Hopson  passing  the  boom  first  on  15 
board  his  ship  the  Torbai/,°  and  the  rest  of  the  ships,  English 
and  Dutch,  following  him.     Twenty  ships  were  burned  or 
taken  in  the   Port   of  Redondilla,°  and  a  vast  deal  more 
plunder  than  was  ever  accounted  for;   but  poor  men  before 
that  expedition  were  rich  afterwards,  and  so  often  was  it  20 
found  and  remarked  that  the  Vigo  officers  came  hom.e  with 
pockets  full  of  money,  that  the  notorious  Jack  Shafto,  who 
made  such  a  figure  at  the  coffee-houses  and  gaming-tables  in 
London,  and  gave  out  that  he  had  been  a  soldier  at    Mgo, 
owned  when  he  was  about  to  be  hanged  that  Bagshot  Heath°  25 
had  been  his  Vigo,  and  that  he  only  spoke  of  La  Redondilla 
to  turn  away  people's  eyes  from  the  real  place  where  the 
booty   lay.      Indeed,    Hounslow   or    Vigo  —  which   matters 
much  ?     The  latter  was  a  bad  business,  though  Mr.  Addison 
did   sing  its   praises   in   Latin. °     That   honest   gentleman's  30 
muse  had  an  eye  to  the  main  chance ;   and  I  doubt  whether 
she  saw  much  inspiration  on  the  losing  side. 

But  though  Esmond,  for  his  part,  got  no  share  of  this 
fabulous  booty,  one  great  prize  which  he  had  out  of  the 
campaign  was  that  excitement  of  action  and  change  of  35 
scene  which  shook  off  a  great  deal  of  his  pre\ious  melan- 
choly. He  learnt  at  any  rate  to  bear  his  fate  cheerfully. 
He  brought  back  a  browned  face,  a  heart  resolute  enough, 
and  a  little  pleasant  store  of  knowledge  and  observation, 


208  HENRY  ESMOND 

from  that  expedition,  which  was  over  with  the  autumn, 
when  the  troops  were  back  in  England  again ;  and  Esmond 
giving  up  his  post  of  secretary  to  General  Lumley,°  whose 
command  was  oyqv,  and  parting  with  that  officer  with  many 
5  kind  expressions  of  good  will  on  the  General's  side,  had  leave 
to  go  to  London  to  sefe  if  he  could  push  his  fortunes  any  way 
further,  and  found  himself  once  more  in  his  dowager  aunt's 
comfortable  quarters  at  Chelsea,  and  in  greater  favour  than 
ever  with  the  old  lady.     He  propitiated  her  with  a  present 

JO  of  a  comb,  a  fan,  and  a  black  mantle,  such  as  the  ladies  of 
Cadiz  wear,  and  which  my  Lady  Viscountess  pronounced 
became  her  style  of  beauty  mightily.  And  she  was  greatly 
edified  at  hearing  of  that  story  of  his  rescue  of  the  nun,  and 
felt  very  little  doubt  but  that  her  King  James's  relick,  which  he 

15  had  always  dutifully  worn  in  his  desk,  had  kept  him  out  of 
danger,  and  averted  the  shot  of  the  enemy.  My  lady  made 
feasts  for  him,  introduced  him  to  more  company,  and  pushed 
liis  fortunes  with  such  enthusiasm  and  success  that  she  got  a 
promise  of  a  company  for  him  through  the  Lady  Marlborough's 

20  interest,  who  was  graciously  })lcased  to  acce})t  of  a  diamond 
worth  a  couple  of  hundred  guineas,  which  Mr.  Esmond  was 
enabled  to  present  to  her  ladyshi])  through  his  aunt's  bounty, 
and  who  promised  that  she  would  take  charge  of  Esmond's 
fortune.     He  had  the  honour  to  make  his  appearance  at  the 

25  Queen's  drawing-room  occasionally  and  to  frequent  my 
Lord  Marlborough's  levees.  That  great  man  received  the 
young  one  with  very  special  favour,  so  Esmond's  comrades 
said,  and  deigned  to  say  that  he  had  received  the  best  reports 
of  Mr.  Esmond,  both  for  courage  and  abilit}^,  whei'con  you 

30  may  be  sure  the  young  gentleman  made  a  profound  bow,  and 
expressed  himself  eager  to  serve  under  the  most  distinguished 
•captain  in  the  world. 

Whilst  his  business  was  going  on  tluis  ])rosperously,  Es- 
mond had  his  share  of  pleasure,  too,  and  made  his  a]^i)earance 

35  along  with  other  young  gentlemen  at  the  coffee-houses,  the 
theatres,  and  the  Mall.°  He  longed  to  hear  of  his  dear  mis- 
tress and  her  family:  many  a  time,  in  the  midst  of  the 
gaieties  and  pleasures  of  the  town,  his  heart  fondly  reverted 
to  them ;   and  often  as  the  young  fellows  of  his  society  were 


HENRY   ESMOND  209 

making  merry  at  the  tavern,  and  calling  toasts  (as  the  fashion 
of  that  day  was)  over  their  wine,  Esmond  thought  of  persons 
—  of  two  fair  women,  whom  he  had  been  used  to  adore 
almost, —  and  emptied  his  glass  with  a  sigh. 

By  this  time  the  elder  Viscountess  had  grown  tired  again  5 
of  the  younger,  and  whenever  she  spoke  of  my  lord's  widow, 
'twas  in  terms  by  no  means  complimentary  towards  that  poor 
lady :    the  younger  woman  not  needing  her  protection  any 
longer,  the  elder  abused  her.     Most  of  the  family  quarrels^ 
that  I  have  seen  in  life  (saving  alv/ays  those  arising  from  10 
money-disputes,    when    a    division    of    twopence-halfpenny 
will  often  drive  the  dearest  relatives  into  war  and  estrange- 
ment)  spring  out  of  jealousy  and  envy.     Jack  and  Tom, 
born  of  the  same  family  and  to  the  sam.e  fortune,  live  very 
cordially  together,  not  until  Jack  is  ruined  when  Tom  deserts  15 
him,  but  until  Tom  makes  a  sudden  rise  in  prosperity,  which 
Jack  can't  forgive.     Ten  times  to  one  ^tis  the  unprosperous 
man  that  is  angry,  not  the  other  who  is  in  fault.     'Tis  Mrs. 
Jack,  who  can  only  afford  a  chair,  that  sickens  at  Mrs.  Tom's 
new  coach-and-six,   cries  out  against  her  sister's  airs,  and  20 
sets  her  husband  against  his  brother.     Tis  Jack  who  sees 
his  brother  shaking  hands  with  a  lord    (with  whom  Jack 
would  like  to  exchange  snuff-boxes  himself) ;  that  goes  home 
and  tells  his  wife  how  poor  Tom  is  spoiled,  he  fears,  and  no 
better  than   a   sneak,   parasite,   and  beggar  on   horseback.  25 
I  remember  how  furious  the   coffee-house  wits  were  with 
Dick  Steele  when  he  set  up  his  coach,  and  fine  house  in 
Bloomsbury° :   they  began  to  forgive  him  when  the  bailiffs 
were  after  him,  and  abused  Mr.  Addison  for  selling  Dick's 
country-house.     And  yet  Dick  in  the  spunging-house,°  or  3° 
Dick  in  the  Park,  with  his  four  mares  and  plated  harness, 
was  exactly  the   same   gentle,   kindly,   improvident,   jovial 
Dick  Steele :  and  yet  ]\Ir.  Addison  was  perfectly  right  in  get- 
ting the  money  which  was  his,  and  not  giving  up  the  amount 
of  his  just  claim,  to  be  spent  by  Dick  upon  champagne  and  35 
fiddlers,  laced  clothes,  fine  furniture,  and  parasites,  Jew  and 
Christian,  male  and  female,  who  clung  to  him.     As,  according 
to  the  famous  maxim  of  Monsieur  de  Rochefoucault,°  *'in 
our  friends'  misfortunes  there's  something  secretly  pleasant 


210  HENRY  ESMOND 

to  us;"  so,  on  the  other  hand,  their  good  fortune  is  disagree' 
able.  If  'tis  hard  for  a  man  to  bear  his  own  good  luck,  'tis 
harder  still  for  his  friends  to  bear  it  for  him ;  and  but  few  oi 
them  ordinarily  can  stand  that  trial :    whereas  one  of  the 

5  "precious  uses"  of  adversity  is,  that  it  is  a  great  reconciler; 
that  it  brings  back  averted  kindness,  disarms  animosity,  and 
causes  yesterday's  enemy  to  fling  his  hatred  aside,  and  hold 
out  a  hand  fo  the  fallen  friend  of  old  days.  There's  pity  and 
love,  as  well  as  envy,  in  the  same  heart  and  towards  the  same 

lo  person.  The  rivalry  stops  when  the  competitor  tumbles ; 
and,  as  I  view  it,  we  should  look  at  these  agreeable  and  dis- 
agreeable qualities  of  our  humanity  humbly  alike.  -They 
are  consequent  and  natural,  and  our  kindness  and  meanness 
both  manly. 

15  So  you  may  either  read  the  sentence,  that  the  elder  of 
Esmond's  two  kinswomen  pardoned  the  younger  her  beauty, 
when  that  had  lost  somewhat  of  its  freshness,  perhaps;  and 
forgot  most  her  grievances  against  the  other,  when  the 
subject  of  them  was  no  longer  prosperous  and  enviable;   or 

20  we  may  say  more  benevolently  (but  the  sum  comes  to  the 
same  figures,  worked  either  way),  that  Isabella  repented  of 
her  unkindness  towards  Rachel,  w^hen  Rachel  was  unhappy; 
and  bestirring  herself  in  behalf  of  the  poor  widow  and  her 
children,  gave  them  shelter  and  friendship.     The  ladies  were 

25  quite  good  friends  as  long  as  the  weaker  one  needed  a  pro- 
tector. Before  Esmond  went  away  o^  his  first  campaign, 
his  mistress  was  still  on  terms  of  friendship  (though  a  poor 
httle  chit,  a  woman  that  had  evidently  no  spirit  in  her,  etc.) 
with  the  elder  Lady  Castlewood;    and  Mistress  Beatrix  was 

30  allowed"  to  be  a  beauty. 

But  between  the  first  year  of  Queen  Anne's  reign,  and  the 
secontl,  sari  changes  for  the  worse  had  taken  ]:)lace  in  the  two 
younger  ladies,  at  least  in  the  elder's  description  of  them. 
Rachel,   Viscountess  Castlewood,  had  no  more  face  than  a 

35  dumi)ling,  and  Mistress  Beatrix  was  grown  c|uite  coarse,  and 
was  losing  all  her  beauty.  Little  Lord  ]31andford  —  (she 
never  would  call  him  Lord  Blandford ;  his  father  was  Lord 
Chm'chill° — the  King,  whom  he  betrayed,  had  made  him 
Lord  Churchill,  and  he  was  Lord  Churchill  still)  —  might  be 


HENRY   ESMOND  211 

making  eyes  at  her;  but  his  mother,  that  vixen  of  a  Sarah 
Jennings, °  would  never  hear  of  sucli  a  folly.  Lady  Marl- 
borough had  got  her  to  be  a  maid-of-honour  at  Court  to  the 
Princess,  but  she  would  repent  of  it.  The  widow  Francis 
(she  was  but  Mrs.  Francis  Esmond)  was  a  scheming,  artful,  5 
heartless  hussy.  She  was  spoihng  hersbrat  of  a  boy,  and  she 
would  end  by  marrying  her  chaplain. 

"  What,  Tusher  V  cried  Mr.  Esmond,  feeling  a  strange  pang 
of  rage  and  astonishment. 

*'Yes  —  Tusher,  my  maid's  son;   and  who  has  got  all  the  la 
qualities  of  his  father,  the  laccpey  in  black,  and  his  accom- 
plished mamma,  the  waiting  woman/'  cries  my  lady.     ''  What 
do  you  suppose  that  a  sentimental   widow,   who   will  live 
down  in  that  dingy  dungeon  of  a  Castlewood,   where  she 
spoils  her  boy,  kills  the  poor  with  her  drugs,  has  prayers  15 
twice  a  day,  and  sees  nobody  but  the  chaplain  —  what  do  you 
suppose  she  can  do,  mon  Cousin,  but  let  the  horrid  parson, 
with  his  great  square  toes,   and  hideous  httle  green  eyes, 
make  love  to  her?     Cela  c'est  vu,  mon  Cousin. °     When  I  was 
a  girl  at  Castlewood,  all  the  chaplains  fell  in  love  with  me  —  20 
they've  nothing  else  to  do." 

My  lady  went  on  with  more  talk  of  this  kind,  though,  in 
truth,  Esmond  had  no  idea  of  what  she  said  further,  so  en- 
tirely did  he.'  first  words  occupy  his  thought.  Were  they 
true  ?  Not  all,  nor  half,  nor  a  tenth  part  of  what  the  gar-  25 
rulous  old  woman  said,  was  true.  Could  this  be  so?  No 
ear  had  Esmond  for  anything  else,  though  his  patroness 
chattered  on  for  an  hour. 

Some  young  gentlemen  of  the  town  with  whom  Esmond  had 
made  acquaintance  had  promised  to  present  him  to  that  most  30 
charming  of  actresses,  and  lively  and  agreeable  of  women, 
Mrs.  Bracegirdle,  about  whom  Harry's  old  adversar}^  Mohun 
had  drawn  swords,  a  few  years  before  my  poor  lord  and  he 
fell  out.  The  famous  IMr.  Congreve  had  stamped  with  his 
high  approval,  to  the  which  there  was  no  gainsaying,  this  35 
delightful  person ;  and  she  was  acting  in  Dick  Steele's  comedies, 
and  finally,  and  for  twenty-four  hours  after  beholding  her, 
Mr.  Esmond  felt  himself,  or  thought  himself,  to  be  as  violently 
enamoured  of  this  lovely  brunette,  as  were  a  thousand  other 


212  HENRY   ESMOND 

young  fellows  about  the  city.  To  have  once  seen  her  was 
to  long  to  behold  her  again ;  and  to  be  offered  the  delightful 
privilege  of  her  acquaintance  was  a  pleasure  the  very  idea  of 
which  set  the  young  lieutenant's  heart  on  fire.     A  man  can- 

5  not  live  with  comrades  under  the  tents  without  finding  out 
that  he  too  is  five-and-twenty.  A  young  fellow  cannot  be 
cast  down  by  grief  and  misfortune  ever  so  severe  but  some 
night  he  begins  to  sleep  sound,  and  some  day  when  dinner- 
time comes  to  feel  hungry  for  a  beefsteak.     Time,  youth,  and 

10  good  health,  new  scenes  and  the  excitement  of  action  and  a 
campaign  had  pretty  well  brought  Esmond's  mourning  to  an 
end ;  and  his  comrades  said  that  Don  Dismal,  as  they  called 
him,  was  Don  Dismal  no  more.  So  when  a  party  was  made 
to  dine  at  the  Rose  and  go  to  the  pla}'house  afterward,  Es- 

15  mond  was  as  pleased  as  another  to  take  his  share  of  the  bottle 
and  the  play. 

How  was  it  that  the  old  aunt's  news,  or  it  might  be  scandal 
about  Tom  Tusher,  caused  such  a  strange  and  sudden  ex- 
citement"   in    Tom's  old  play  fellow?     Hadn't  he  sworn  a 

20  thousand  times  in  his  own  mind,  that  the  Lady  of  Castlewood, 
who  had  treated  him  with  such  kindness  once,  and  then  had 
left  him  so  cruelly,  was,  and  was  to  remain  henceforth,  in- 
different to  him  for  ever?  Had  his  pride,  and  his  sense  of 
justice,  not  long  since  helped  him  to  cure  the  j^ain  of  that 

25  desertion  —  was  it  even  a  pain  to  him  now  ?  Why,  but  last 
night  as  he  walked  across  the  fields  and  meadows  to  Chelsea" 
from  Pall  Mall,  had  he  not  composed  two  or  three  stanzas 
of  a  song,  celebrating  Braccgirdle's  brown  eyes,  and  declar- 
ing them  a  thousand  times  more  beautiful  than  the  brightest 

30  blue  ones  that  ever  languished  under  the  lashes  of  an  insipid 
fair  beauty,  liut  Tom  Tusher !  Tom  Tusher,  the  waiting 
woman's  son,  raising  up  his  little  eyes  to  his  mistress !  Tom 
Tusher  presuming,  to  think  of  Castlewood's  widow!  Rage 
and  contempt  filled  Mr.  Harry's  heart  at  the  very  notion;  the 

35  honour  of  the  family,  of  which  he  was  the  chief,  made  it  his 
duty  to  prevent  so  monstrous  an  alliance,  and  to  chastise 
the  upstart  who  could  dare  to  think  of  such  an  insult  to  their 
house.  'Tis  true  Mr.  JOsmond  often  boasted  of  republican 
principles,  and  could  remember  many  fine  speeches  he  had 


HENRY   ESMOND  213 

made  at  college  and  elsewhere,  with  worth  and  not  hirth  for 
a  text :  but  Tom  Tusher,  to  take  the  place  of  the  noble  Castle- 
v.'ood  —  faugh  !  'twas  as  monstrous  as  King  Hamlet's  widow 
taking  off  her  weeds  for  Claudius. °  Esmond  laughed  at  all 
widows,  all  wives,  all  women ;  and  were  the  banns  about  to  5 
be  published,  as  no  doubt  they  were,  that  very  next  Sunday 
at  Walcote  Church ;  Esmond  swore  that  he  would  be  present 
to  shout  Xo !  in  the  face  of  the  congregation,  and  to  take 
a  private  revenge  upon  the  ears  of  tlie  bridegroom. 

Instead  of  going  to  dinner  then  at  the  Rose  that  night,  Mr.  10 
Esmond  bade  his  servant  pack  a  portmanteau  and  get  horses, 
and  was  at  Farnham,°  half  way  on  the  road  to  Walcote, 
thirty  miles  off,  before  his  comrades  had  got  to  their  supper 
after  the  play.     He  bade  his  man  give  no  hint  to  my  Lady 
Dowager's  household  of  the  expedition  on  which  he  was  going :  15 
and  as  Chelsea  was  distant  from  London,  the  roads  bad,  and 
infested  by  foot-pads  ;   and  Esmond,  often  in  the  habit,  when 
engaged  in  a  party  of  pleasure,  of  lying  at  a  friend's  lodg- 
ing in  town,  there  was  no  need  that  his  old  aunt  should  be 
disturbed  at  his  absence  —  indeed  nothing  more  dehghted  20 
the  old  lady  than  to  fancy  that   mon  Cousin,   the   incorri- 
gible  young   sinner,    was   abroad    boxing   the     watch, °    or 
scouring  St.  Giles's. °     When  she  was  not  at  her  books  of 
devotion,  she  thought  Etheredge  and  Sedley°  very  good  read- 
ing.    She  had  a  hundred  pretty  stories   about   Rochester,  25 
Harry  Jermyn,  and  Hamilton°;    and  if  Esmond  would  but 
have  run  away  with  the  wife  even  of  a  citizen,  'tis  my  beUef 
she  woUid  have  pawned  her  diamonds  (the  best  of  them  went 
to  our  Lady  of  Chaillot°)  to  pay  his  damages. 

My  lord's  little  house  of  Walcote,  which  he  inhabited  30 
before  he  took  his  title  and  occupied  the  house  of  Castle- 
wood  —  lies  about  a  mile  from  Winchester,  and  his  widow 
had  'returned  to  Walcote  after  my  lord's  death  as  a  place 
always  dear  to  her,  and  where  her  earliest  and  happiest 
days  had  been  spent,  cheerfuller  than  Castle  wood,  which  35 
was  too  large  for  her  straitened  means,  and  gi^^ng  her,  too, 
the  protection  of  the  ex-Dean,  her  father.  The  young  Vis- 
count had  a  year's  schooling  at  the  famous  college"  there 
with  Mr.  Tusher  as  his  sfovernor.     So  much  news  of  them 


214  HENRY   ESMOND 

Mr.  Esmond  had  had  during  the  past  year  from  the  old  ViS' 
countess,  his  own  father's  widow;  from  the  young  one  there 
had  never  been  a  word. 

Twice  or  thrice  in  his  benefactor's  hfetime,  Esmond  had 

5  been  to  Walcote;  and  now,  taking  but  a  couple  of  hours' 
rest  only  at  the  inn  on  the  road,  he  was  up  again  long  before 
daybreak,  and  made  such  good  speed,  that  he  was  at  Walcote 
by  two  o'clock  of  the  day.  He  rid  to  the  inn  of  the  village, 
where  he  alighted  and  sent  a  man  thence  to  Mr.  Tusher 

10  with  a  message  that  a  gentleman  from  London  would  speak 
^vith  him  on  urgent  business.  The  messenger  came  back 
to  say  the  Doctor  was  in  town,  most  hkely  at  prayers  in 
the  Cathedral. °  My  Lady  Viscountess  was  there  too;  she 
always  went  to  Cathedral  prayers  every  day. 

15  The  horses  belonged  to  the  post-house  at  Winchester. 
Esmond  mounted  again,  and  rode  on  to  the  George ;  whence 
he  walked,  leaving  his  grumbling  domestick  at  last  happy 
with  a  dinner,  straight  to  the  Cathedral.  The  organ  was 
playing :    the   winter's  day  was  already  growing  grey :    as 

20  he  passed  under  the  street-arch  into  the  cathedral-yard, 
and  made  his  way  into  the  ancient  solemn  edifice. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    29711    DECEMBER 

There  was  scarce  a  score  of  pci'sons  in  the  Cathedral 
besides  the  Dean  and  some  of  his  clergy,  and  the  choristers, 
young  and  old,  that  ])erformed  the  beautiful  evening  prayer. 

25  Hut  Dr.  Tusher  was  one  of  the  officiants,  and  read  from  the 
eagle,  in  an  authoritative  voice,  and  a  great  black  perriwig; 
and  in  the  stalls,  still  in  her  black  widow's  hood,  sat  Esmond's 
dear  mistress,  her  son  by  her  side,  very  much  grown,  and 
indeed  a  noble-looking  youth,  with  his  mother's  eyes,  and 

30  his  father's  curling  brown  hair,  that  fell  over  his  point  de 
Venifie^  —  a  pretty  picture  such  as  Vandyke°  might  have 
painted.  Mons.  Uigaud's  portrait"  of  my  Lord  Viscount, 
done  at  Paris  afterwards,  gives  but  a  French  version  of  his 


HENRY   ESMOND  215 

manly,  frank  English  face.  When  he  looked  up  there  were 
two  sapphire  beams  out  of  his  eyes,  such  as  no  painter's 
palette  has  the  colour  to  match,  I  think.  On  this  day  there 
was  not  much  chance  of  seeing  that  particular  beauty  of 
my  young  lord's  countenance;  for  the  truth  is,  he  kept  his  5 
eyes  shut  for  the  most  part,  and,  the  anthem  being  rather 
long,  was  asleep. 

But  the  musick  ceasing,  my  lord  woke  up,  looking  about 
him,  and  his  eyes  lighting  on  Mr.  Esmond,  who  was  sitting 
opposite  him,  gazing  with  no  small  tenderness  and  melan-  la 
choly  upon  two  persons  who  had  had  so  much  of  his  heart 
for  so  many  years;  Lord  Castlewood,  with  a  start,  pulled 
at  his  mother's  sleeve  (her  face  had  scarce  been  hfted  from 
her  book),  and  said,  ''Look,  mother !"  so  loud,  that  Esmond 
could  hear  on  the  other  side  of  the  church,  and  the  old  15 
Dean  on  his  throned  stall.  Lady  Castlewood  looked  for 
an  instant  as  her  son  bade  her,  and  held  up  a  warning  finger 
to  Frank;  Esmond  felt 'his  whole  face  flush,  and  his  heart 
throbbing,  as  that  dear  lady  beheld  him  once  more.  The 
rest  of  the  prayers  were  speedily  over :  Mr.  Esmond  did  not  20 
hear  them;  nor  did  his  mistress,  very  hkely,  whose  hood 
went  more  closely  over  her  face,  and  who  never  lifted  her 
head  again  until  the  service  was  over,  the  blessing  given, 
and  Mr.  Dean,  and  his  procession  of  ecclesiasticks,  out  of 
the  inner  chapel.  25 

Young  Castlewood  came  clambering  over  the  stalls  before 
the  clergy  were  fairly  gone,  and  running  up  to  Esmond, 
sagerly  embraced  him.  "My  dear,  dearest  old  Harry," 
he  said,  "are°  you  come  back?  Have  you  been  to  the  wars? 
You'll  take  me  with  you  when  you  go  again?  Why  didn't  3° 
you  write  to  us?     Come  to  mother." 

Mr.  Esmond  could  hardly  say  more  than  a  God  bless  you, 
my  boy,  for  his  heart  was  very  full  and  grateful  at  all  this 
tenderness  on  the  lad's  part ;  and  he  was  as  much  moved 
at  seeing  Frank,  as  he  was  fearful  about  that  other  inter-  35 
riew  which  was  now  to  take  place ;  for  he  knew  not  if  the 
widow  would  reject  him  as  she  had  done  so  cruelly  a  year  ago. 

"It  was  kind  of  you  to  come  back  to  us,  Henry,"  Lady 
Esmond  said.     "I  thought  you  might  come." 


216  HENRY   ESMOND 

"We  read  of  the  fleet  coming  to  Portsmouth.  Wh;y 
did  you  not  come  from  Portsmouth?"  Frank  asked,  or  my 
Lord  Viscount  as  he  now  must  be  called. 

Esmond  had  thought  of  that  too.     He  would  have  given 
5  one  of  his  eyes  so  that  he  might  see  his  dear  friends  again 
once  more;    but  believing  that  his  mistress  had  forbidden 
him  her  house,  he  had  obeyed  her,  and  remained  at  a  dis- 
tance. 

"You  had  but  to  ask,  and  you  knew  I  would  be  here," 

TO  he  said. 

She  gave  him  her  hand,  her  little  fair  hand :  there  was 
only  her  marriage  ring  on  it.  The  quarrel  was  all  over. 
The  year  of  grief  and  estrangement  was  past.  They  never 
had  been  separated.     His  mistress  had  never  been  out  of 

15  his  mind  all  that  time.  No,  not  once.  No,  not  in  the  prison ; 
nor  in  the  camp ;  nor  on  shore  before  the  enemy ;  nor  at 
sea  under  the  stars  of  solemn  midnight,  nor  as  he  watched  the 
glorious  rising  of  the  dawn :  not  even  at  the  table  where 
he  sate    carousing  with  friends,  or  at  the    theatre    yonder 

20  where  he  tried  to  fancy  that  other  eyes  were  brighter  than 
hers.  Brighter  eyes  there  might  be,  and  faces  more  beautiful, 
but  none  so  dear  —  no  voice  so  sweet  as  that  of  his  beloved 
mistress,  who  had  been  sister,  mother,  goddess  to  him  during 
his  youth  —  goddess  now  no  more,  for  he  knew  of  her  weak- 

25  nesses;  and  by  thought,  by  suffering,  and  that  experience 
it  brings,  was  older  now  than  she ;  but  more  fondly  cherished 
as  woman  perhaps  than  ever  she  had  been  adored  as  divinity. 
What  is  it?  Where  lies  it?  the  secret  which  makes  one 
little  hand  the  dearest  of  all?     Whoever  can  unriddle  that 

30  mystery?  Here  she  was,  her  son  by  his  side,  his  dear  boy. 
Here  she  was,  weeping  and  happy.  She  took  his  hand  in 
both  hers;  he  felt  her  tears.  It  was  a  rapture  of  recon- 
ciliation. 

"Here  comes  Squaretoes,"  says  Frank.     "Here's  Tusher." 

35  Tusher,  indeed,  now  appeared,  creaking  on  his  great  heels. 
Mr.  Tom  had  divested  himself  of  his  alb  or  surplice,  and 
came  forward  habited  in  his  cassock  and  great  black  perriwig. 
How  had  Harry  Esmond  ever  been  for  a  moment  jealous  of 
this  fellow? 


HENRY   ESMOND  217 

"Give  us  thy  hand,  Tom  Tusher,"  he  said.  The  chaplain 
made  him  a  very  low  and  stately  bow.  ''I  am  charmed 
to  see  Captain  Esmond,"  says  he.  ''My  lord  and  I  have  read 
the  Reddas  incolumem  precor°  and  applied  it,  I  am  sure, 
to  you.  You  come  back  with  Gaditanian°  laurels :  when  5 
I  heard  you  were  bound  thither,  I  wished,  I  am  sure,  I  was 
another  Septimius.  My  Lord  Viscount,  your  lordship 
remembers  Scptimi,  Gades  aditure  mccum°  V 

"There's  an  angle  of  earth  that  I  love  better  than  Gades, 
Tusher,"   says   Mr.    Esmond.     "  Tis    that    one   where   your  ic 
Reverence  hath  a  parsonage,  and  where  our  youth  was  brought 
up." 

"A  house  that  has  so  many  sacred  recollections  to  me," 
says  Mr.  Tusher  (and  Harr}^  remembered  how  Tom's  father 
used  to  flog  him  there)  —  "a  house  near  to  that  of  my  15 
respected  patron,  my  most  honoured  patroness,  must  ever 
be  a  dear  abode  to  me.  But,  madam,  the  verger°  waits 
to  close  the  gates  on  your  ladyship." 

"  And  Harry's  coming  home  to  supper.     Huzzay  !  huzzay  ! " 
cries  my  lord.     "Mother,  shall  I  run  home  and  bid  Beatrix  20 
put  her  ribbons  on?     Beatrix  is  a  maid  of  honour,°  Harry. 
Such  a  fine  set-up  minx  ! " 

"Your  heart  was  never  in  the  Church,  Harry,"  the  widow 
said,  in  her  sweet  low  tone,  as  they  walked  away  together. 
(Xow,  it  seemed  they  had  never  been  parted,  and  again,  25 
as  if  they  had  been  ages  asunder.)  "I  always  thought 
you  had  no  vocation  that  w^ay;  and  that  'twas  a  pit}^  to 
shut  you  out  from  the  world.  You  would  but  have  pined 
and  chafed  at  Castlewood :  and  'tis  better  you  should  make 
a  name  for  yourself.  I  often  said  so  to  my  dear  lord.  How  30 
he  loved  you !     'Twas  my  lord  that  made  you  stay  with  us." 

"I  asked  no  better  than  to  stay  near  you  always,"  said 
Mr.   Esmond. 

"But  to  go  was  best,  Harry.  When  the  world  cannot 
give  peace,  you  will  know  where  to  find  it ;  but  one  of  your  35 
strong  imagination  and  eager  desires  must  try  the  world  first 
before  he  tires  of  it.  'Twas  not  to  be  thought  of,  or  if  it 
once  was,  it  was  only  by  my  selfishness,  that  you  should 
remain  as  chaplain  to  a  country  gentleman  and  tutor  to  a 


218  HENRY   ESMOND 

little  boy.  You  are  of  the  blood  of  the  Esmonds,  kinsman; 
and  that  was  always  wild  in  j^outh.  Look  at  Francis.  He 
is  but  fifteen,  and  I  scarce  can  keep  him  in  my  nest.  His 
talk  is  all  of  war  and  pleasure,  and  he  longs  to  serve  in  the 

5  next  campaign.  Perhaps  he  and  the  young  Lord  Churchill 
shall  go  the  next.  Lord  Marlborough  has  been  good  to  us. 
You  know  how  kind  they  were  in  my  misfortune.  And  so 
was  your  —  your  father's  widow.  No  one  knows  how  good 
the  world  is,  till  grief  comes  to  try  us.     Tis  through  my 

10  Lad}^  Marlborough's  goodness  that  Beatrix  hath  her  place 
at  Court;  and  Frank  is  under  my  Lord  Chamberlain.  And 
the  dowager  lady,  your  father's  widow,  has  promised  to  pro- 
vide for  you  —  has  she  not?" 

Esmond  said  "Yes.     As  far  as  present  favour  went.  Lady 

15  Castlewood  was  very  good  to  him.  And  should  her  mind 
change,"  he  added  gaily,  "as  ladies'  minds  will,  I  am  strong 
enough  to  bear  my  own  burthen,  and  make  my  way  some- 
how. Not  by  the  sword  very  likely.  Thousands  have  a 
better  genius  for  that  than  I,  but  there  are  many  ways  in 

JO  which  a  young  man  of  good  parts  and  education  can  get 
on  in  the  world ;  and  I  am  pretty  sure,  one  way  or  other,  of 
promotion!"  Indeed,  he  had  found  patrons  already  in  the 
army,  and  amongst  persons  very  able  to  serve  him,  too ;  and 
told  his  mistress  of  the  flattering  aspect  of  fortune.     They 

'5  walked  as  though  they  had  never  been  parted,  slowly,  with 
the  grey  twilight  closing  round  them. 

"And  now  we  are  drawing  near  to  home,"  she  continued. 
"I  knew  you  would  come,  Harry,  if  —  if  it  'vvas  but  to  for- 
give me  for  having  spoken  unjustly  to  you  after  that  horrid 

50  —  horrid  misfortune.  I  was  half  frantick  with  grief  then, 
when  I  saw  you.  And  I  know  now  —  they  have  told  me. 
That  wretch,  whose  name  I  can  never  mention,  even  has 
said  it:  how  you  tried  to  avert  the  quarrel,  and  would  have 
taken  it  on  yourself,  my  poor  child :   but  it  was  God's  will 

35  that  I  should  Ik'  i)iniishod,  and  that  my  dear  lord  should 
fall." 

"He  gave  me  his  blessing  on  his  death-bed,"  Esmond 
said.     "Thank  (Jod  for  that  legacy!" 

"Amen,  amen!    dear  Henry,"  says  the  lady,  pressing  his 


HENRY   ESMOND  219 

arm.  "I  knew  it.  Mr.  Atterbury,  of  St.  Bride's,  who  was 
called  to  him,  told  me  so.  And  I  thanked  God,  too,  and  in 
ni}^  prayers  ever  since,  remembered  it." 

"You  had  spared  me  many  a  bitter  night,  had  you  told 
me  sooner,"  Mr.  Esmond  said.  5 

"I  know  it,  I  know  it,°"  she  answered,  in  a  tone  of  such 
sweet  humility,  as  made  Esmond  repent  that  he  should  ever 
have  dared  to  reproach  her.  ''I  know  how  wicked  my  heart 
has  been;  and  I  have  suffered  too,  my  dear.  I  confessed 
to  Mr.  Atterbury  —  I  must  not  tell  any  more.  He  —  I  lo 
said  I  would  not  write  to  you  or  go  to  you  —  and  it  was 
better,  even,  that  having  parted,  we  should  part.  But 
X  knew  you  would  come  back  —  I  own  that.  That  is  no 
one's  fault.  And  to-day,  Henry,  in  the  anthem,  when 
they  sang  it,  '  When  the  Lord  turned  the  captivity  of  Zion,  15 
we  were  like  them  that  dream,'  I  thought,  3^es,  like  them 
that  dream  —  them  that  dream.  And  then  it  went,  'They 
that  sow  in  tears  shall  reap  in  joy;  and  he  that  goeth  forth 
and  weepeth,  shall  doubtless"  come  again  with  rejoicing, 
bringing  his  sheaves  with  him;'  I  looked  up  from  the  book,  20 
and  saw  you.  I  was  not  surprised  when  I  saw^  you.  I 
knew  you  would  come,  my  dear,  and  saw  the  gold  sunshine 
round  your  head." 

She  smiled  an  almost  wild  smile,  as  she  looked  up  at  him. 
The  moon  was  up  by  this  time,  glittering  keen  in  the  frosty  25 
sky.     He  could  see,  for  the  first  time  now  clearly,  her  sweet 
careworn  face. 

"  Do  you  know  what  day  it  is  ?  "  she  continued.  "  It  is  the 
29th  of  December  —  it  is  your  birthday  !  But  last  year  we 
did  not  drink  it  —  no,  no.  My  lord  was  cold,  and  my  Harry  30 
was. likely  to  die:  and  my  brain  was  in  a  fever;  and  we  had 
no  wine.  But  now  -^  now  you  are  come  again,  bringing 
your  sheaves  with  you,°  my  dear."  She  burst  into  a  wild 
flood  of  weeping  as  she  spoke;  she  laughed  and  sobbed  on 
the  young  man's  heart,  crying  out  wildly,  "bringing  your  35 
sheaves  with  you  —  your  sheaves  with  you  !" 

As  he  had  sometimes  felt,  gazing  up  from  the  deck  at 
midnight  into  the  boundless  starlit  depths  overhead,  in  a 
rapture  of  devout  wonder  at  that  endless  brightness  and 


220  HENRY  ESMOND 

beauty  —  in  some  such  a  way  now,  the  depth  of  this  pure 
devotion  (which  w^as,  for  the  first  time,  revealed  to  him 
quite)  smote  upon  him,  and  filled  his  heart  with  thanks- 
giving. Gracious  God,  who  was  he,  weak  and  friendless 
5  creature,  that  such  a  love  should  be  poured  out  upon  him? 
Not  in  vain  —  not  in  vain  has  he  lived,  —  hard  and  thank- 
less should  he  be  to  think  so  —  that  has  such  a  treasure 
given  him.  What  is  ambition  compared  to  that?  but 
selfish  vanit}^     To  be  rich,  to  be  famous?     What  do  these 

10  profit  a  year  hence,  w^hen  other  names  sound  louder  than 
yours,  when  you  lie  hidden  away  under  ground,  along  with 
the  idle  titles  engraven  on  your  coffin?  But  only  true  love 
lives  after  you,  —  follows  5^our  memory  with  secret  blessing, 
—  or   precedes   you,    and   intercedes   for   you.     Non   omnis 

15  moriar°  —  if  dying,  I  yet  live  in  a  tender  heart  or  two; 
nor  am  lost  and  hopeless  living,  if  a  sainted  departed  soul  still 
loves  and  prays  for  me. 

*'If  —  if    'tis    so,    dear   lady,''   Mr.    Esmond   said,    "why 
should  I  ever  leave  you  ?     If  God  hath  given  me  this  great 

20  boon,  —  and  near  or  far  from  me,  as  I  know  now,  —  the 
heart  of  my  dearest  mistress  follows  me;  let  me  have  that 
blessing  near  me,  nor  ever  part  with  it  till  death  separate 
us.  Come  away  —  leave  this  Europe,  this  place  which  has  so 
many  sad  recollections  for  you.     Begin  a  new  life  in  a  new 

25  world.    My  good  lord  often  talked  of  visiting  that  land  in  Vir- 
ginia which  King  Charles  gave  us  —  gave  his  ancestor.    Frank 
will  give  us  that.     No  man  there  will  ask  if  there  is  a  blot° 
on  my  name,  or  inquire  in  the  woods  what  my  title  is." 
"  And    my    children,  —  and    my    duty,  —  and    my    good 

30  father?  —  Henry,"  she  broke  out.  "He  has  none  but  me 
now;  for  soon  my  sister  will  leave  him,  and  the  old  man 
will  be  alone.  He  has  conformed"  since  the  new  Queen's 
reign;  and  here  in  Winchester,  where  they  love  him,  they 
have  found   a   church   for  him.     When   the   children   leave 

35  me,  I  will  stay  with  him.  I  cannot  follow  them  into  the 
great  world,  where  their  way  lies  —  it  scares  me.  They 
will  come  and  visit  me ;  and  you  will,  sometimes,  Henry  — • 
yes,  sometimes,  as  now,  in  the  Holy  Advent  season, °  when 
T  have  seen  and  blessed  you  once  more." 


HENRY  ESMOND  221 

"I  would  leave  all  to  follow  you,"  said  ^Ir.  Esmond ;  "and 
can  you  not  be  as  generous  for  me,  dear  lady  ?  " 

"Hush,  boy!''  she  said,  and  it  was  with  a  mother's  sweet 
plaintive  tone  and  look  that  she  spoke.  "The  world  is  be- 
ginning for  you.  For  me,  I  have  been  so  weak  and  sinful  5 
that  I  must  leave  it,  and  pray  out  an  expiation,  dear  Henry. 
Had  we  houses  of  religion  as  there  were  once,  and  many 
di\'ines  of  our  church  would  have  them  again,  I  often  think 
I  would  retire  to  one  and  pass  my  life  in  penance.  But  I 
would  love  3^ou  still  —  yes,  there  is  no  sin  in  such  a  love  as  la 
mine  now ;  and  my  dear  lord  in  Heaven  may  see  my  heart ; 
and  knows  the  tears  that  have  washed  my  sin  away  —  and 
now  —  now  my  duty  is  here,  by  my  children  whilst  they 
need  me,  nnd  by  my  poor  old  father,  and " 

"And  not  by  me?''  Henry  said.  15 

"Hush!"  she  said  again,  and  raised  her  hand  up  to  his 
lip.  "I  have  been  your  nurse.  You  could  not  see  me, 
Harry,  when  you  were  in  the  small-pox,  and  I  came  and  sate 
by  you.  Ah !  I  prayed  that  I  might  die,  but  it  would  have 
been  in  sin,  Henry.  Oh,  it  is  horrid  to  look  back  to  that  20 
time.  It  is  over  now  and  past,  and  it  has  been  forgiven  me. 
When  you  need  me  again  I  will  come  ever  so  far.  When  your 
heart  is  wounded,  then  come  to  me,  my  dear.  Be  silent ! 
let  me  say  all.  You  never  loved  me,  dear  Henry  —  no,  you 
do  net  now,  and  I  thank  Heaven  for  it.  I  used  to  watch  25 
you,  and  knew  by  a  thousand  signs  that  it  was  so.  Do  you 
remember  how  glad  you  were  to  go  away  to  College  ?  'Twas 
I  sent  you.  I  told  my  papa  that,  and  Mr.  Atterbury  too, 
when  I  spoke  to  him  in  London.  And  they  both  gave  me 
absolution  — both  —  and  they  are  godly  men  having  author-  3° 
ity  to  Vjind  and  to  loose.  And  they  forgave  me,  as  my  dear 
lord  forgave  me  before  he  went  to  Heaven." 

"I  think  the  angels  are  not  all  in  Heaven,"  Mr.  Esmond 
said.     And  as  a  brother  folds  a  sister  to  his  heart ;   and  as  a 
mother  cleaves  to  her  son's  breast  —  so  for  a  few  moments  35 
Esmond's  beloved  mistress  came  to  him  and  blessed  him. 


222  HENRY  ESMOND 

CHAPTER  VII 

I   AM   MADE    WELCOME   AT   WALCOTE 

As  they  came  up  to  the  house  at  Walcote,  the  windows 
from  within  were  lighted  up  with  friendly  welcome;  the 
supper-table  was  spread  in  the  oak  parlour ;  it  seemed  as  if 
forgiveness  and  love  were  awaiting  the  returning  prodigal. 

5  Two  or  three  familiar  faces  of  domesticks  Were  on  the  look-out 
at  the  porch  —  the  old  housekeeper  was  there,  and  young 
Lockwood  from  Castle  wood  in  my  lord's  livery  of  tawny  and 
blue.  His  dear  mistress  pressed  his  arm  as  they  passed  into 
the  hall.     Her  eyes  beamed  out  on  him  with  affection  inde- 

10  scribable.  "Welcome/'  was  all  she  said:  as  she  looked  up, 
putting  back  her  fair  curls  and  black  hood.  A  sweet  rosy 
smile  blushed  on  her  face ;  Harry  thought  he  had  never  seen 
her  look  so  charming.  Her  face  was  lighted  with  a  joy  that  was 
brighter  than  beauty  —  she  took  a  hand  of  her  son  who  was 

15  in  the  hall  waiting  his  mother  —  she  did  not  quit  Esmond's  arm. 

"Welcome,    Harry!"   my   young   lord   echoed   after   her. 

"Here,  we  are  all  come  to  say  so.     Here's  old  Pincot,  hasn't 

she  grown  handsome?"  and  Pincot,  who  was  older,  and  no 

handsomer  than  usual,  made  a  curtsey  to  the  Captain,  as  she 

20  called  Esmond,  and  told  my  lord  to  "Have  done,  now." 

"And    here's    Jack    Lockwood.     He'll    make    a    famous 

grenadier,°  Jack;   and  so  shall  I;   we'll  both  list  under  you, 

cousin.     As  soon  as  I  am  seventeen  I  go  to  the  army  —  every 

gentleman  goes  to   the   army.     Look !    who  comes  here  — 

25  ho,  ho!"  he  burst  into  a  laugh.  " 'Tis  Mistress  'Trix,  with 
a  new  ribl^on ;  I  knew  she  would  put  one  on  as  soon  as  she 
heard  a  Captain  was  coming  to  supi)er." 

This  laughing  colloquy  took  place  in  the  hall  of  Walcote 
House  :  in  the  midst  of  which  is  a  staircase  that  leads  from  an 

30  open  gaUery,  where  are  the  doors  of  the  sleeping  chambers: 
and  from  one  of  these,  a  wax  candle  in  her  hand,  and  illu- 
minating her,  came  Mistress  Beatrix^  —  the  light  falli^ig indeed 
upon  the  scarlet  ribbon  which  she  wore,  and  upon  the  most 
brilliant  white  neck  in  the  world. 


HENRY   ESMOND  223 

Esmond  had  left  a  child,  and  found  a  woman,  grown  beyond 
the  common  height;  and  arrived  at  such  a  dazzling  com- 
pleteness of  beauty,  that  his  eyes  might  well  show  surprise 
and  dehght  at  beholding  her.  In  hers  there  was  a  brightness 
so  lustrous  and  melting,  that  I  have  seen  a  whole  assembly  5 
follow  her  as  'f  by  an  attraction  irresistible :  and  that  night 
the  great  Duke  was  at  the  playhouse  after  Ramiilies,  every 
soul  turned  and  looked  (she  chanced  to  enter  at  the  opposite 
side  of  the  theatre  at  the  same  moment)  at  her,  and  not  at 
him.  She  was  a  brown  beauty :  that  is,  her  eyes,  hair,  and  eye-  10 
brows  and  eyelashes,  were  dark :  her  hair  curling  with  rich 
undulations,  and  v^^aving  over  her  shoulders;  but  her  com- 
plexion was  as  dazzling  white  as  snow  in  sunshine;  except 
her  cheeks,  which  were  a  bright  red,  and  her  lips,  which  were 
of  a  still  deeper  crimson,  tier  mouth  and  chin,  they  said,  15 
were  too  large  and  full,  and  so  they  might  be  for  a  goddess  in 
marble,  but  not  for  a  woman  whose  eyes  were  fire,  whose  look 
was  love,  whose  voice  was  the  sweetest  low  song,  whose 
shape  was  perfect  symmetry,  health,  decision,  activity, 
whose  foot  as  it  planted  itself  on  the  ground  was  firm  but  20 
flexible,  and  whose  motion,  whether  rapid  or  slow,  was  always 
perfect  grace  —  agile  as  a  nymph,  lofty  as  a  queen  ^  now 
melting,  now  imperious,  now  sarcastick,  there  was  no  single 
movement  of  hers  but  was  beautiful.  As  he  thinks  of  her, 
he  who  writes  feels  young  again,  and  remembers  a  paragon.  25 

So  she  came  holding  her  dress  with  one  fair  rounded  arm, 
and  her  taper  before  her,  tripping  down  the  stair  to  greet 
Esmond. 

"She  hath  put  on  her  scarlet  stockings  and  white  shoes,'' 
says  my  brd,  still  laughing.  "Oh,  my  fine  mistress  !  is  this  30 
the  way  you  set  your  cap  at  the  Captain  ?  "  She  approached, 
shining  smiles  upon  Esmond,  who  could  look  at  nothing  but 
her  eyes.  She  advanced  holding  forward  her  head,  as  if  she 
would  have  him  kiss  her  as  he  used  to  do  when  she  was  a 
child.  35 

"Stop,"  she  said,  "I  am  grown  too  big !  Welcome,  cousin 
Harry,"  and  she  made  him  an  arch  curtsey,  sweeping  down 
to  the  ground  almost,  with  the  most  gracious  bend,  looking 
up  the   while  with  the  brightest    eyes  and  sweetest    smile. 


224  HENRY   ESMOND 

Love  seemed  to  radiate  from  her.  Harry  eyed  her  with  such 
a  rapture  as  the  first  lover  is  described  as  having  by  Milton. ° 
"N'est  ce  pas°?''  says  my  lady,  in  a  low,  sweet  voice,  still 
hanging  on  his  arm. 
5  Esmond  turned  round  with  a  start  and  a  blush,  as  he  met 
his  mistress's  clear  eyes.  He  had  forgotten  her,  rapt  in 
admiration  of  the  filia  pulcn'or. 

"Right  foot  forward,  toe  turned  out,  so:  now  drop  the 
curtsey,  and  show  the  red  stockings,  ""Trix.     They've  silver 

10  clocks, °  Harry.  The  dowager  sent  'em.  She  went  to  put 
'em  on,''  cries  my  lord. 

"Hush,  you  stupid  child!"  says  Miss,  smothering  her 
brother  with  kisses;  and  then  she  must  come  and  kiss  her 
mamma,  looking  all  the  while  at  Harry,  over  his  mistress's 

15  shoulder.  And  if  she  did  not  kiss  him,  she  gave  him  both 
her  hands,  and  then  took  one  of  his  in  both  hands,  and  said, 
"Oh,  Harry,  we're  so,  so  glad  you're  come!" 

"There  are  woodcocks  for  supper,"  says  my  lord.  "Huz- 
zay !     It  was  such  a  hungry  sermon." 

20  "And  it  is  the  29th  of  December;  and  our  Harry  has  come 
home." 

"Huzzay,  old  Pincot!"  again  says  my  lord;  and  my  dear 
lady's  lips  looked  as  if  thoy  were  trembling  with  a  prayer.  She 
would  have  Harry  lead  in  Beatrix  to  the  supper-room,  going 

25  herself  with  my  young  Lord  Viscount ;  and  to  this  party  came 
Tom  Tusher  directly,  whom  four  at  least  out  of  the  company 
of  five  wished  away.  Away  he  went,  however,  as  soon  as 
the  sweetmeats  were  put  down,  and  then,  by  the  great  crack- 
ling fire,  his  mistress  or  Beatrix  with  her  blushing  graces 

30  filling  his  glass  for  him,  Harry  told  the  story  of  his  campaign, 
and  passed  the  most  delightful  night  his  life  had  ever  known. 
The  sun  was  up  long  ere  he  was,  so  deep,  sweet,  and  refreshing 
was  his  slumber.  He  woke  as  if  angels  liad  been  watching  at 
his  bed  all  night.     I  dare  say  one  that  was  as  pure  and  loving 

35  as  an  angel  had  blest  his  sleep  with  her  prayers. 

Next   morning   the   Chaplain   read   prayers   to   the   little 
household  at  Walcote,  as  the  custom  was;    Esmond  thought 
Mistress  Beatrix  did  not  listen  to  Tusher's  exhortation  much; , 
her  eyes  were  wandering  everywhere  during  the  service,  at 


HENRY   ESMOND  22b 

least  whenever  he  looked  up  he  met  them.  Perhaps  he  also 
was  not  very  attentive  to  his  Reverence  the  Chaplain.  ''  This 
might  have  been  my  life,"  he  was  thinking;  "this  might 
have  been  my  duty  from  now  till  old  age.  Well,  were  it  not 
a  pleasant  one  to  be  with  these  dear  friends  and  part  from  5 
'em  no  more  ?  Until  —  until  the  destined  lover  comes  and 
takes  away  pretty  Beatrix''  —  and  the  best  part  of  Tom 
Tusher's  exposition,  which  ma}^  have  been  very  learned  and 
eloquent,  was  quite  lost  to  poor  Harry  by  this  vision  of  the 
destined  lover,  who  put  the  preacher  out.  10 

All  the  while  of  the  prayers,  Beatrix  knelt  a  little  way 
before  Harry  Esmond.  The  red  stockings  were  changed  for 
a  pair  of  grey,  and  black  shoes,  in  which  her  feet  looked  to  the 
full  as  pretty.  All  the  roses  of  spring  could  not  vie  with  the 
brightness  of  her  complexion  ;  Esmond  thought  he  had  never  15 
seen  anything  like  the  sunny  lustre  of  her  eyes.  M;v  Lady 
Viscountess  looked  fatigued,  as  if  with  watching,^ and  her 
face  was  pale. 

]\Iiss  Beatrix  remarked  these  signs  of  indisposition  in  her 
mother,  and  deplored  them.     ''I  am  an  old  woman,"  says  20 
my  lady,  with  a  kind  smile;  "I  cannot  hope  to  look  as  young 
as  you  do,  my  dear." 

"  She'll  never  look  as  good  as  you  do  if  she  lives  till  she's  a 
hundred,"  says  my  lord,  taking  his  mother  by  the  waist,  and 
kissing  her  hand.  2z^ 

"Do  I  look  very  wicked,  cousin?"  says  Beatrix,  turning 
full  round  on  Esmond,  with  her  prettv  face  so  close  under  his 
chin,  that  the  soft  perfumed  hair  touched  it.  She  laid  her 
finger-tips  on  his  sleeve  as  she  spoke;  and  he  put  his  other 
hand  over  hers.  30 

"I'm  hke  your  looking-glass,"  says  he,  "and  that  can't 
flatter  you." 

"He  means  that  you  are  always  looking  at  him,  my  dear," 
says  her  mother,  archly.     Beatrix  ran  away  from  Esmond  at 
this,  and  flew  to  her  mamma,  whom  she  kissed,  stopping  my  35 
lady's  mouth  with  her  pretty  hand. 

"And  Harry  is  very  good  to  look  at,"  says  my  lady,  with 
her  fond  eyes  regarding  the  young  man. 

"If  'tis  good  to  see  a  happy  face,"  says  he,  "you  see  that." 


226  HENRY   ESMOND 

My  lady  said  Amen,  with  a  sigh;  and  Harry  thought  the 
memory  of  her  dear  lord  rose  up  and  rebuked  her  back  again 
into  sadness ;  for  her  face  lost  the  smile,  and  resumed  its  look 
of  melancholy. 
5  ''Why,  Harr}'-,  how  fine  we  look  in  our  scarlet  and  silver, 
and  our  black  perriwig,"  cries  m}^  lord.  "Mother,  I  am  tired 
of  my  own  hair.  When  shall  I  have  a  perruque?  Where  did 
you  get  your  steenkirk,°  Harry?" 

"It's  some  of  my  Lady  Dowager's  lace,"  says  Harry;   she 
lo  gave  me  this  and  a  number  of  other  fine  things.'*' 

"My  Lady  Dowager  isn't  such  a  bad  woman,"  my  lord 
continued. 

"  She's  not  so  —  so  red  as  she's  painted,"  says  Miss  Beatrix. 

Her  brother  broke  into  a  laugh.     "I'll  tell  her  you  said  so ; 
15  by  the  Lord,   'Trix,  I  will,"  he  cries  out. 

"She'll  know  that  you  hadn't  the  wit  to  say  it,  my  lord," 
says  Miss  Beatrix. 

"We  won't  quarrel  the  first  day  Harry's  here,  will  we, 

mother?"  said  the  young  lord.     "We'll  see  if  we  can  get  on 

20  to  the  new  year  without  a  fight.    Have  some  of  this  Christmas 

pie?   and  here  comes  the   tankard;  no,  it's  Pincot  with  the 

tea." 

"Will  the  Captain  choose  a  dish?"  asks  Mistress  Beatrix. 

"I  say,  Harry,"  my  lord  goes  on,  "I'll  show  thee  my  horses 
25  after  breakfast;  and  we'll  go  a-bird-netting  to-night,  and  on 
Monday  there's  a  cock-match  at  Winchester  —  do  you  love 
cock-fighting,  Harry?  —  between  the  gentlemen  of  Sussex 
and  the  gentlemen  of  Hampshire,  at  ten  pound  the  battle, 
and  fifty  pound  the  odd  battle,  to  show  one-and-twenty 
30  cocks." 

"And  what  will  you  do,  Beatrix,  to  amuse  our  kinsman?" 
asks  my  lady. 

"I'll  listen  to  him,"  says  Beatrix;  "I  am  sure  he  has  a 
hundred  things  to  tell  us.  And  I'm  jealous  already  of  the 
35  Spanish  ladies.  Was  that  a  beautiful  nun  at  Cadiz  that  you 
rescued  from  the  soldiers?  Your  man  talked  of  it  last  night 
in  the  kitchen,  and  Mrs.  l^etty  told  me  this  morning  as  she 
combed  my  hair.  And  he  says  you  must  be  in  love,  for  you 
sate  on  deck  all  night,  and  scribbled  verses  all  day  in  your 


HENRY   ESMOND  227 

table-book."  Harry  thought  if  he  had  wanted  a  subject  for 
verses  yesterday,  to-day  he  had  found  one :  and  not  all  thf 
Lindamiras  and  Ardelias°  of  the  poets  were  half  so  beautiful 
as  this  young  creature ;  but  he  did  not  say  so,  though  some 
one  did  for  him.  '  5 

This  was  his  dear  lady  who,  after  the  meal  was  over,  and 
the  young  people  were  gone,  began  tallring  of  her  children 
with  Mr.  Esmond,  and  of  the  characters  of  one  and  the  other, 
and  of  her  hopes  and  fears  for  both  of  them.  ''  Tis  not  while 
they  are  at  home,''  she  said,  ''and  in  their  mother's  nest,  I  lo 
fear  for  them  —  'tis  when  they  are  gone  into  the  world 
whither  I  shall  not  be  able  to  follow  them.  Beatrix  will 
begin  her  service  next  year.  You  may  have  heard  a  rumour 
about  —  about  my  Lord  Blandford.  They  were  both  chil- 
dren; and  it  is  but  idle  talk.  I  know  my  kinswoman  would  15 
never  let  him  make  such  a  poor  marriage  as  our  Beatrix 
would  be.  There's  scarce  a  princess  in  Europe  that  she 
thinks  is  good  enough  for  him  or  for  her  ambition." 

''There's  not  a  princess  in  Europe  to  compare  with  her," 
says  Esmond.  20 

"In  beauty?  No,  perhaps  not,"  answered  my  lady. 
"She  is  most  beautiful,  isn't  she?  'Tis  not  a  mother's  par- 
tiality that  deceives  me.  I  marked  you  yesterday  when  she 
came  down  the  stair :  and  read  it  in  your  face.  AVe  look 
when  you  don't  fancy  us  looking,  and  see  better  than  3^ou  25 
think,  dear  Harry  :  and  just  now  when  they  spoke  about  your 
poems  —  you  writ  pretty  lines  when  you  were  but  a  boy  — 
you  thought  Beatrix  was  a  pretty  subject  for  verse,  did  not 
you,  Harry?"  (The gentleman  could  only  blush  for  a  reply.) 
"And  so  she  is  —  nor  are  you  the  first  her  pretty  face  has  30 
captivated.  'Tis  quickly  done.  Such  a  pair  of  bright  ej^es 
as  hers  learn  their  power  very  soon,  and  use  it  very  early." 
And,  looking  at  him  keenly  with  hers,  the  fair  widow  left  him. 

And  so  it  is°  —  a  pair  of  bright  eyes  with  a  dozen  glances 
suffice  to  subdue  a  man;  to  enslave  him,  and  enflame  him;  35 
to  make  him  even  forget :  they  dazzle  him  so  that  the  past 
becomes  straightway  dim  to  him  ;  and  he  so  prizes  them  that 
he  would  give  all  his  hfe  to  possess  'em.  What  is  the  fond 
love   of   dearest   friends    compared    to    this    treasure  ?     L 


228  HENRY  ESMOND 

memory  as  strong  as  expectancy  ?  fruition,  as  hunger  ?  grati- 
tude, as  desire?  I  have  looked  at  royal  diamonds  in  the 
jewel-rooms  in  Europe,  and  thought  how  wars  have  been 
made  about  'em;  IMogul  sovereigns  deposed  and  strangled 
5  for  them,  or  ransomed  with  them ;  millions  expended  to  buy 
them ;  and  daring  lives  lost  in  digging  out  the  little  shining 
toys  that  I  value  no  more  than  the  button  in  ray  hat.  And 
so  there  are  other  glittering  baubles  (of  rare  water  too)  for 
which  men  have  been  set  to  kill  and  quarrel  ever  since  man- 

10  kind  began :  and  which  last  but  for  a  score  of  years,  when 
their  sparkle  is  over.  Where  are  those  jewels  now  that 
beamed  under  Cleopatra's  forehead,  or  shone  in  the  sockets 
of  Helen°? 

The  second  day  after  Esmond's  coming  to  Walcote,  Tom 

15  Tusher  had  leave  to  take  a  holiday,  and  went  off  in  his  very 
best  gown  and  bands  to  court  the  young  woman  whom  his 
Reverence  desired  to  marry,  and  who  was  not  a  viscount's 
widow,  as  it  turned  out,  but  a  brewer's  relict  at  Southampton, 
with  a  couple  of  thousand  pounds  to  her  fortune :  for  honest 

20  Tom's  heart  was  under  such  excellent  controul,  that  Venus  her- 
self without  a  portion  would  never  have  caused  it  to  flutter. 
So  he  rode  away  on  his  heavy-paced  gelding  to  pursue  his 
jog-trot  loves,  leaving  Esmond  to  the  society  of  his  dear 
mistress  and  her  daughter,  and  with  his  young   lord  for  a 

25  companion,  who  was  charmed  not  only  to  ^ee  an  old  friend, 
but  to  have  the  tutor  and  his  Latin  books  put  out  of  the 
way. 

The  boy  talked  of  things  and  people,  and  not  a  little  about 
himself,  in  his  frank  artless  way.     'Twas  easy  to  see  that  he 

30  and  his  sister  had  the  better  of  their  fond  mother,  for  the 
first  place  in  whose  affections  though  they  fought  constantly; 
and  though  the  kind  lady  i)ersisted  that  she  loved  both 
equally,  'twas  not  difficult  to  understand  that  Frank  was 
his   mother's   darling  and   favourite.     He   ruled   the   whole 

35  household  (always  excej^ting  rebellious  Beatrix)  not  less 
now  than  when  he  was  a  child  marshalling  the  village  boys 
in  playing  at  soldiers,  and  caning  them  lustily  too,  like  the 
sturdiest  corporal.  As  for  Tom  Tusher,  his  Reverence 
treated  the  young  lord  with  that  politeness  and  deference 


HENRY  ESMOND  229 

which  he  always  showed  for  a  great  man,  whatever  his  age 
or  his  stature  was.  Indeed  with  respect  to  this  young  one, 
it  was  impossible  not  to  love  him,  so  frank  and  winning 
were  his  manners,  his  beauty,  his  gaiety,  the  ring  of  his 
laughter,  and  the  delightful  tone  of  his  voice.  Wherever  5 
he  went,  he  charmed  and  domineered.  I  think  his  old 
grandfather,  the  Dean,  and  the  grim  old  housekeeper,  Mrs. 
Pincot,  were  as  much  his  slaves  as  his  mother  was  :  and  as  for 
Esmond,  he  found  himself  presently  submitting  to  a  certain 
fascination  the  boy  had,  and  slaving  it  like  the  rest  of  the  10 
family.  The  pleasure  which  he  had  in  Frank's  mere  com- 
pany and  converse  exceeded  that  which  he  ever  enjoyed 
in  the  society  of  any  other  man,  however  delightful  in  talk, 
or  famous  for  wdt.  His  presence  brought  sunshine  into  a 
room,  his  laugh,  his  prattle,  his  noble  beauty,  and  brightness  15 
of  look  cheered  and  charmed  indescribably.  At  the  least 
tale  of  sorrow,  his  hands  were  in  his  purse,  and  he  w^as  eager 
with  sympathy  and  bount^^  The  way  in  w^hich  women 
loved  and  petted  him,  wiien,  a  year  or  two  afterwards,  he 
came  upon  the  world,  yet  a  mere  boy,  and  the  follies  which  20 
they  did  for  him  (as  indeed  he  for  them),  recalled  the  career 
of  Rochester,  and  outdid  the  successes  of  Grammont.° 
His  very  creditors  loved  him;  and  the  hardest  usurers,  and 
some  of  the  rigid  prudes  of  the  other  sex  too,  could  deny 
him  nothing.  He  was  no  more  witty  than  another  man,  25 
but  what  he  said,  he  said  and  looked  as  no  man  else  could 
say  or  look  it.  I  have  seen  the  women  at  the  comedy  at 
Bruxelles°  crowd  round  him  in  the  lobby :  and  as  he  sate  on 
the  stage  more  people  looked  at  him  than  at  the  actors, 
and  watched  him;  and  I  remember  at  Ramillies,  wdien  he  30 
was  hit,  and  fell,  a  great  big  red-haired  Scotch  sergeant 
flung  his  halbert  down,  burst  out  a-crying  like  a  woman, 
seizing  him  up  as  if  he  had  been  an  infant,  and  carry- 
ing him  out  of  the  fire.  This  brother  and  sister  w^ere  the 
most  beautiful  couple  ever  seeil :  though  after  he  winged  35 
away  from  the  maternal  nest  this  pair  were  seldom 
together. 

Sitting  at  dinner  tw^o  days  after  Esmond's  arrival  (it  was 
the  last  day  of  the  year),  and  so  happy  a  one  to  Harry 


230  HENRY  ESMOND 

Esmond,  that  to  enjoy  it  was  quite  worth  all  the  previous 
pain  which  he  had  endured  and  forgot :  my  young  lord, 
filHng  a  bumper,  and  bidding  Harry  take  another,  drank 
to  his  sister,  saluting  her  under  the  title  of  "Marchioness." 
5  "  Marchioness  ! "  says  Harry,  not  without  a  pang  of  wonder, 
for  he  was  curious  and  jealous  already. 

"Nonsense,  my  lord,"  says  Beatrix,  with  a  toss  of  her 
head.  My  Lady  Viscountess  looked  up  for  a  moment  at 
Esmond,  and  cast  her  eyes  down, 
lo  "The  Marchioness  of  Blandford,"  says  Frank,  "don't 
you  know  —  hath  not  Rouge  Dragon  told  you?''  (My 
lord  used  to  call  the  dowager  at  Chelsea  by  this  and  other 
names.)  "Blandford°  has  a  lock  of  her  hair:  the  Duchess 
found  him  on  his  knees  to  Mistress  Trix,  and  boxed  his 
15  ears,  and  said  Dr.  Hare°  should  whip  him." 

"I  wish  Mr.  Tusher  would  whip  you  too,"  says  Beatrix. 

My  lady  only  said:    "I  hope  you  tell  none  of  these  silly 
stories  elsewhere  than  at  home,  Francis." 

" 'Tis   true,    on   my   word,"   continues   Frank:    "look  at 
20  Harry  scowling,  mother,  and  see  how  Beatrix  blushes  as  red 
as  the  silver-clocked  stockings." 

"  I  think  we  had  best  leave  the  gentlemen  to  their  wine  and 
their  talk,"  says  Mistress  Beatrix,  rising  up  .with  the  air  of  a 
young  queen,  tossing  her  rustling,  flowing  draperies  about 
25  her,  and  quitting  the  room,  followed  by  her  mother. 

Lady  Castlewood  again  looked  at  Esmond,  as  she  stooped 
down  and  kissed  Frank.  "Do  not  tell  those  silly  stories, 
child,"  she  said:  "do  not  drink  much  wine,  sir;  Harry 
never  lov^ed  to  drink  wine."  And  she  went  away  too,  in  her 
30  black  robes,  looking  back  on  the  young  man  with  her  fair, 
fond  face. 

"Egad!  it's  true,"  says  Frank,  sipping  his  wine  with  the 
air  of  a  lord.  "  What  think  you  of  this  Lisbon  —  real  Collares? 
'Tis  better  than  your  heady  port :  we  got  it  out  of  one  of  the 
35  Spanish  ships  that  came  from  Vigo  last  year :  my  mother 
bouglit  it  at  Southampton,  as  the  ship  was  lying  there  — 
the  Rose,  Captain  Hawkins." 

"Why,  I  came  home  in  that  ship,"  says  Harry. 

"And   it   brought  home  a  good  fellow  and  good  wine," 


HENRY   ESMOND  231 

says  my  lord.     ''I  say,  Harry,  I  wish  thou  haclst  not  that 
eursed  bar  sinister." 

''And  why  not  the  bar  sinister?"  asks  the  other. 

"Suppose  I  go  to  the  army  and  am  killed  —  every  gentle- 
man goes  to  the  army  —  who  is  to  take  care  of  the  women  ?  5 
'Trix  will  never  stop  at  home ;  mother's  in  love  with  you,  — 
yes,  I  think  mother's  in  love  with  you.  She  was  always 
praising  you,  and  always  talking  about  you;  and  when 
she  went  to  Southampton,  to  see  the  ship,  I  found  her  out. 
But  you  see  it  is  impossible :  we  ar«  of  the  oldest  blood  in  10 
England;  we  came  in  with  the  Conciueror;  we  were  only 
baronets,  —  but  what  then  ?  we  were  forced  into  that. 
James  the  First  forced  our  great-grandfather.  We  are 
above  titles;  we  old  English  gentry  don't  want  'em;  the 
Queen  can  make  a  duke  any  day.  Look  at  Blandford's  15 
father,  Duke  Churchill,  and  Duchess  Jennings,  what  were 
they,  Harry?  Damn  it,  sir,  what  are  they,  to  turn  up  their 
noses  at  us?  Where  were  they,  when  our  ancestor  rode 
with  King  Henry  at  Agincourt,°  and  filled  up  the  French 
king's  cup  after  Poictiers°  ?  'Fore  George,  sir,  why  shouldn't  20 
Blandford  marry  Beatrix?  By  G —  ?  he  shall  marry  Beatrix, 
or  tell  me  the  reason  why.  We'll  marry  with  the  best  blood 
of  England,  and  none  but  the  best  blood  of  England.  You 
are  an  Esmond,  and  you  can't  help  your  birth,  my  boy. 
Let's  have  another  bottle.  What!  no  more?  I've  drunk  25 
three  parts  of  this  myself.  I  had  many  a  night  with  my 
father;  you  stood  to  him  like  a  man,  Harry.  You  backed 
your  blood ;  you  can't  help  your  misfortune,  you  know,  —  no 
man  can  help  that." 

The  elder  said  he  would  go  in  to  his  mistress's  tea-table.  3° 
The  young  lad,  with  a  heightened  colour  and  voice,  began 
singing  a  snatch  of  a  song,  and  marched  out  of  the  room. 
Esmond  heard  him  presently  calling  his  dogs  about  him, 
and  cheering  and  talking  to  them ;  and  by  a  hundred  of  his 
looks  and  gestures,  tricks  of  voice  and  gait,  was  reminded  35 
of  the  dead  lord,  Frank's  father. 

And  so,  the  Sylvester  night°  passed  away;  the  family 
parted  long  before  midnight.  Lady  Castlewood  remembering, 
no    doubt,    former    New    Year's    Eves,    when    healths   were 


232  HENRY   ESMOND 

drunk,  and  laughter  went  round  in  the  company  of  him,  to 
whom  years,  past,  and  present,  and  future,  were  to  be  as 
one;  and  so  cared  not  to  sit  with  her  children  and  hear  the 
Cathedral  bells  ringing  the  birth  of  the  year  1703.  Esmond 
5  heard  the  chimes  as  he  sate  in  his  own  chamber,  ruminating 
by  the  blazing  fire  there,  and  listened  to  the  last  notes  of 
them,  looking  out  from,  his  window  towards  the  city,  and 
the  great  grey  towers  of  the  Cathedral  lying  under  the  frosty 
sky,  with  the  keen  stars  shining  above. 

10  The  sight  of  these  brilliant  orbs  no  doubt  made  him  think 
of  other  luminaries.  ''And  so  her  eyes  have  already  done 
execution,"  thought  Esmond  —  "on  whom?  —  who  can 
tell  me?"  Luckily  his  kinsman  was  by,  and  Esmond  knew 
he  would  have  no  difficulty  in  finding  out  Mistress  Beatrix's 

15  history  from  the  simple  talk  of  the  boy. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

FAMILY    TALK 

What  Harry  admired  and  submitted  to  in  the  pretty  lad, 
his  kinsman,  was  (for  why  should  he  resist  it  ?)  the  calmness 
of  patronage  which  my  young  lord  assumed,  as  if  to  command 
was  his  undoubted  right,  and  all  the  world  (below  his  degree) 

20  ought  to  bow  down  to  Viscount  Castlewood. 

"I  know  my  place,  Harry,"  he  said.  "I'm  not  proud  — 
the  boys  at  Winchester  College  say  I'm  proud:  but  I'm  not 
proud.  I  am  simply  Francis  James,  A^'iscount  Castlewood 
in  the  peerage  of  Irehmd.     I  might  have  been  (do  you  know 

25  that?)  Francis  James,  Marquis  and  Earl  of  Esmond,  in 
that  of  England.  The  late  lord  refused  the  title  which 
was  offered  to  him  by  my  godfather,  his  late  Majesty.  You 
should  know  that  —  you  are  of  our  family,  you  know  —  you 
cannot  help  your  bar  sinister,  Harry,  my  dear  fellow;    and 

30  you  bek)ng  to  one  of  the  best  families  in  England,  in  spite 
of  that;  and  you  stood  by  my  father,  and  by  G — !  I'll 
stand  by  you.  You  shall  never  want  a  friend,  Harry, 
while   Francis   James.  Viscount   Castlewood,  has   a   shilling. 


HENRY  ESMOND  233 

It's  now  1703  —  I  shall  come  of  age  in  1709.  I  shall  go 
back  to  Castlewood;  I  shall  live  at  Castlewood;  I  shall 
build  up  the  house.  My  property  will  be  pretty  well  re- 
stored by  then.  The  late  Viscount  mismanaged  my  property, 
and  left  it  in  a  very  bad  state.  My  mother  is  living  close,  as  5 
you  see,  and  keeps  me  in  a  way  hardly  befitting  a  peer  of 
these  realms ;  for  I  have  but  a  pair  of  horses,  a  governor,  and 
a  man  that  is  valet  and  groom.  But  when  I  am  of  age,  these 
things  will  be  set  right,  Harry.  Our  house  will  be  as  it 
should  be.  You'll  always  come  to  Castlewood,  won't  you?  lo 
You  shall  always  have  your  two  rooms  in  the  court  kept 

for  you ;  and  if  anybody  slights  you,  d them  !  let  them 

have  a  care  of  me.  I  shall  marry  early  —  'Trix  will  be  a 
duchess  by  that  time,  most  likely;  for  a  cannon-ball  may 
knock  over  his  Grace°  any  day,  you  know."  15 

"How?"  says  Harry. 

"Hush,  my  dear!"  says  my  Lord  Viscount.  "You  are 
of  the  family  —  you  are  faithful  to  us,  by  George,  and  I 
tell  you  everything.  Blandford  will  marry  her  —  or — " 
and  here  he  put  his  little  hand  on  his  sword  —  "you  under-  zq 
stand  the  rest.  Blandford  knows  which  of  us  two  is  the 
best  weapon.  At  small-sword,  or  back-sword,  or  sword 
and  dagger,  if  he  likes :  I  can  beat  him.  I  have  tried  him, 
Harry;  and  begad,  he  knows  I  am  a  man  not  to  be  trifled 
with."  25 

"But  you.  do  not  mean,"  says  Harry,  concealing  his 
laughter,  but  not  his  wonder,  "that  you  can  force  my  Lord 
Blandford,  the  son  of  the  first  man  of  this  kingdom,  to  marry 
your  sister  at  sword's  point?" 

"I  mean  to  say  that  we  are  cousins  by  the  mother's  side,  30 
though  that's  nothing  to  boast  of.  I  mean  to  say  that  an 
Esmond  is  as  good  as  a  Churchill ;  and  when  the  King  comes 
back,  the  Marquis  of  Esmond's  sister  may  be  a  match  for 
any  nobleman's  daughter  in  the  kingdom.  There  are  but 
two  marquises  in  all  England,  William  Herbert,  Marquis  of  35 
Powis,°  and  Francis  James,  Marquis  of  Esmond;  and 
hark  you,  Harry,  now  swear  you'll  never  mention  this. 
Give  me  your  honour,  as  a  gentleman,  for  you  are  a  gentler 
man,  though  you  are  a " 


234  HENRY   ESMOND 

''Well,  well/'  says  Harry,  a  little  impatient. 
''Well,  then,  when  after  my  late  Viscount's  misfortune^ 
m}^  mother  went  up  with  us  to  London,  to  ask  for  justice 
against  you  all  (as  for  Mohun,  I'll  have  his  blood,  as  sure  as 
5  my  name  is  Francis,  Viscount  Esmond),  we  went  to  stay 
with  our  cousin,  my  Lady  Marlborough,  with  whom  we  had 
quarrelled  for  ever  so  long.  But  when  misfortune  came,  she 
stood  by  her  blood ;  —  so  did  the  Dowager  Viscountess 
stand  by  her  blood,  —  so  did  ycu.     Well,   sir,   whilst  my 

10  mother  was  petitioning  the  late  Prince  of  Orange  —  for 
I  will  never  call  him  king  —  and  while  you  were  in  prison, 
we  lived  at  my  Lord  Marlborough's  house,  who  was  only  a 
little  there,  being  away  with  the  army  in  Holland.  And 
then  ...  I  say,  Harry,  you  won't  tell,  now?" 

15      Harry  again  made  a  vow  of  secrecy. 

"Weil,  there  used  to  be  all  sorts  of  fun,  you  know:  'my 
Lady  Marlborough  was  very  fond  of  us,  and  she  said  I  was 
to  be  her  page;  and  she  got  'Trix  to  be  a  maid  of  honour, 
and  while  she  was  up  in  her  room  crying,  we  used  to  be 

20  always  having  fun,  you  know ;  and  the  Duchess  used  to  kiss 
me,  and  so  did  her  daughters,  and  Blandford  fell  tremendous 
in  love  with  'Trix,  and  she  liked  him ;  and  one  day  he  —  he 
kissed  her  behind  a  door  —  he  did  though,  —  and  the 
Duchess  caught  him,  and  she  banged  such  a  box  of  the  ear 

25  both  to  'Trix  and  Blandford  —  3^ou  should  have  seen  it ! 
And  then  she  said  that  we  must  leave  directly,  and  abused  my 
mamma,  who  was  cognizant  of  the  business;  but  she  wasn't, 
—  never  thinking  about  anything  but  father.  And  so  we 
came  down  to  Walcote.     Blandford  being  locked  up,  and 

30  not  allowed  to  see  'Trix.  But  /  got  at  him.  I  climbed 
along  the  gutter,  and  in  through  the  window,  where  he  was 
crying. 

"'Marquis,'  says  I,  when  he  had  opened  it  and  helped  me 
in,  'you  know  I  wear  a  sword,'  for  I  had  brought  it. 

35  "'Oh,  Viscount!'  says  he  —  'oh,  my  dearest  Frank!' 
and  he  flung  himself  into  my  arms,  and  burst  out  a-crying. 
'I  do  love  Mistress  Beatrix  so,  that  I  shall  die,  if  I  don't 
have   her.' 

"'  My  dear  Blandford,'  says  I,  'you  are  young  to  think  of 


HENRY   ESMOND  236 

marrying;'    for  he  was  but  fifteen,  and  a  young  fellow   at 
that  age  can  scarce  do  so,  you  know. 

'"But  I'll  wait  twenty  years,  if  she'll  have  me,'  says  he. 
'I'll  never  marry  —  no,  never,  never,  never,  marry  anybody 
but  her.  No,  not  a  princess,  though  they  would  have  me  do  5 
it  ever  so.  If  Beatrix  will  wait  for  me,  her  Blandford  swears 
he  will  be  faithful.'  And  he  wrote  a  paper  (it  wasn't  spelt 
right,  for  he  wrote  'I'm  ready  to  sine  with  my  blode,°' 
which  you  know,  Harry,  isn't  the  way  of  spelling  it),  and 
vovsdng  that  he  would  marry  none  other  but  the  Honourable  ic 
IMistress  Gertrude  Beatrix  Esmond,  only  sister  of  his  dearest 
friend  Francis  James,  fourth  Viscount  Esmond.  And  so  I 
gave  him  a  locket  of  her  hair." 

"A  locket  of  her  hair !"  cries  Esmond. 

"Yes.  'Trix  gave  me  one  after  the  fight  with  the  Duchess  15 
that  very  day.  I'm  sure  I  didn't  want  it ;  and  so  I  gave  it 
him,  and  we  kissed  at  parting,  and  said  — '  Good-bye, 
brother.'  And  I  got  back  through  the  gutter;  and  we 
set  off  home  that  very  evening.  And  he  went  to  King's 
College, °  in  Cambridge,  and  /'?/2  going  to  Cambridge  soon;  20 
and  if  he  doesn't  stand  to  his  promise  (for  he's  only  wrote 
once) ,  —  he  knows  I  wear  a  sword,  Harry.  Come  along, 
and  let's  go  see  the  cocking-match  at  Winchester. 

".  .  .  But  I  sa}^"  he  added,  laughing,  after  a  pause,  "I 
don't  think  'Trix  will  break  her  heart  about  him.  Law  25 
bless  you !  Whenever  she  sees  a  man,  she  makes  ej^es  at 
him ;  and  young  Sir  Wilmot  Crawley,  of  Queen's  Crawley, 
and  Anthony  Henley,  of  Alresford,°  were  at  swords  drawn 
about  her,  at  the  Winchester  Assembly,  a  month  ago." 

That  night  Mr.  Harry's  sleep  was  by  no  means  so  pleasant  30 
or  sweet  as  it  had  been  on  the  first  two  evenings  after  his 
arrival  at  Walcote.  "  So,  the  bright  eyes  have  been  already 
shining  on  another,"  thought  he,  "and  the  pretty  lips,  or 
the  cheeks  at  any  rate,  have  begun  the  work  which  they  were 
made  for.  Here's  a  girl  not  sixteen,  and  one  young  gentle-  35 
man  is  already  whimpering  over  a  lock  of  her  hair,  and  two 
C'ountiy  squires  are  ready  to  cut  each  other's  throats  that 
they  may  have  the  honour  of  a  dance  with  her.  What 
a  fool  am  I  to  be  dallying  about  this  passion,  aad  singeing 


23G  HENRY   ESMOND 

my  wings  in  this  foolish  flame.  Wings !  —  why  not  sa^ 
crutches?  There  is  but  eight  years  difference  between  us, 
to  be  sure ;  but  in  hfe  I  am  thirty  years  older.  How  could 
I  ever  hope  to  please  such  a  sweet  creature  as  that,  with  my 
«;  rough  ways  and  glum  face?  Say  that  I  have  merit  ever  so 
much,  and  won  myself  a  name,  could  she  ever  listen  to  me? 
She  must  be  my  Lady  Marchioness,  and  I  remain  a  nameless 
bastard.  Oh!  my  master,  my  master!"  (here  he  fell  to 
thinking  with  a  passionate  grief  of  the  vow  which  he  had 
10  made  to  his  poor  dying  lord);  "Oh!  my  mistress,  dearest 
and  kindest,  will  you  be  contented  with  the  sacrifice  which 
the  poor  orphan  makes  for  you,  whom  you  love,  and  who 
so  loves  you?" 

And  then  came  a  fiercer  pang  of  temptation.     "A  word 

15  from  me,"  Harry  thought,  "a  syllable  of  explanation,  and  all 

this  might  be  changed;    but  no,  I  swore  it  over  the  dying 

bed  of  my  benefactor.     For  the  sake  of  him  and  his ;  for  the 

sacred  love  and  kindness  of  old  days ;   I  gave  my  promise  to 

him,  and  may  kind  Heaven  enable  me  to  keep  my  vow." 

20      The  next  day,  although  Esmond  gave  no  sign  of  what  was 

going  on  in  his  mind,  but  strove  to  be  more  than  ordinarily 

gay  and  cheerful  when  he  met  his  friends  at  the  morning 

meal,  his  dear  mistress,  whose  clear  eyes  it  seemed  no  emotion 

of  his  could  escape,  perceived  that  something  troubled  him,  for 

25  she  looked  anxiously  towards  him  more  than  once  during  the 

breakfast,  and  when  he  went  up  to  his  chamber  afterwards 

she  presently  followed  him,  and  knocked  at  his  door. 

As  she  entered,  no  doubt  the  whole  story  was  clear  to  her  at 
once,  for  she  found  our  young  gentleman  packing  his  valise, 
30  pursuant  to  the  resolution  which  he  liad  come  to  over-night  of 
making  a  brisk  retreat  out  of  this  temi)tati()n. 

She  closed  the  door  very  carefully  l)ehind  her,  and  then 
leant  against  it,  very  pale,  her  hands  folded  before  her,  looking 
at  the  yoimg  man,  who  was  kneeling  over  his  work  of  packing. 
_35  "Arc  you  going  so  soon?"  she  said. 

He  rose  up  from  his  knees,  blushing,  perhaps,  to  be  so  dis- 
co\erefl,  in  the  very  act,  as  it  were,  and  took  one  of  her  fair 
little  hands  —  it  was  that  whi"h  hiH  he»*  marriage  ring  on  — ' 
and  kissed  it. 


HENRY   ESMOND  237 

''It- is  best  that  it  should  be  so,  clearest  lady/'  he  said. 

"  I  knew  you  were  going,  at  breakfast.  I  —  I  thought  you 
might  stay.  What  has  happened?  Why  can't  you  remain 
longer  with  us  ?  What  has  Frank  told  you  —  you  were 
talking  together  late  last  night?"  5 

"I  had  but  three  days'  leave  from  Chelsea,"  Esmond  said, 
as  gaily  as  he  could.     "My  aunt  —  she  lets  me  call  her  aunt 
—  is  my  mistress  now;    x  owe  her  my  lieutenantcy  and  my 
laced  coat.     She  has  taken  me  into  high  favour;    and  my 
new   General   is   to    dine   at   Chelsea   to-morrow  —  General  lo 
Lumley,  madam  —  who  has  appointed  me  his  aide-de-camp. 
and  on  whom  I  must  have  the  honour  of  w^aitin^.     See,  her 
is  a  letter  from  the  dowager ;   the  post  brought  it  last  night 
and  I  would  not  speak  of  it,  for  fear  of  disturbing  our  last 
merry  meeting."  -  15 

My  lady  glanced  at  the  letter,  and  put  it  down  with  a  smile 
that  was  somewhat  contemptuous.  "I  have  no  need  to  read 
the  letter,"  says  she  —  (indeed,  'twas  as  well  she  did  not;  for 
the  Chelsea  missive,  in  the  poor  dowager's  usual  French 
jargon,  permitted  him  a  longer  holiday  than  he  said.  "Je  20 
vous  donne,"  quoth  her  ladyship,  "oui  jour,  pour  vous  fatigay 
parfaictement  de  vos  parens  fatigans  °")- — "I  have  no  need 
to  read  the  letter,"  says  she.  ''What  was  it  Frank  told  you 
last  night?" 

"He  told  me  little  I  did  not  know,"  Mr.  Esmond  answered.  25 
"But  I  have  thought  of  that  httle,  and  here's  the  result:  I 
have  no  right  to  the  name  I  bear,  dear  lady ;  and  it  is  only  by 
your  sufferance  that  I  am  allowed  to  keep  it.  If  I  thought 
for  an  hour  of  what  has  perhaps  crossed  your  mind 
too "  30 

"Yes,  I  did,  Harry,"  said  she;  "I  thought  of  it;  and 
think  of  it.  I  would  sooner  call  you  my  son,  than  the  greatest 
prince  in  Europe  —  yes,  than  the  greatest  prince.  For  who 
is  there  so  good  and  so  brave,  and  who  would  love  her  as  you 
would?     But  there  are  reasons  a  mother  can't  tell."  35 

"I  know  them,"  said  Mr.  Esmond,  interrupting  her  with  a 
smile.  "  I  know  there's  Sir  Wilmot  Crawley  of  Queen's 
Crawley,  and  Mr.  Anthony  Henley  of  the  Grange,  and  my 
Lord  Marquis  of  Blandford,  that  seems  to  be  the  favoured 


238  HENRY  ESMOND 

suitor.     You  shall  ask  me  to  wear  my  Lady  Marchioness's 
favours  and  to  dance  at  her  ladyship's  wedding." 

''Oh  !  Harry.  Harry,  it  is  none  of  these  folhes  that  frighten 
me,"  cried  out  Lady  Castlewood.     "Lord  Churchill  is  but  a 

5  child,  his  outbreak  about  Beatrix  was  a  mere  boyish  folly. 
His  parents  would  rather  see  him  buried  than  married  to  one 
below  him  in  rank.  And  do  )^ou  think  I  would  stoop  to  sue 
for  a  husband  for  Francis  Esmond's  daughter;  or  submit  to 
have  my  girl  smuggled  into  that  proud  family  to  cause  a 

lo  quarrel  between  son  and  parents,  and  to  be  treated  only  as 
an  inferior?  I  would  disdain  such  a  meanness.  Beatrix 
would  scorn  it.  Ah  !  Henry,  'tis  not  with  you  the  fault  lies, 
'tis  with  her.  I  know  you  both,  and  love  you;  need  I  be 
ashamed  of  that  love  now  ?   No,  never,  never,  and  'tis  not  you, 

15  dear  Harry,  that  is  unworthy.  'Tis  for  my  poor  Beatrix 
I  tremble,  —  whose  headstrong  will  frightens  me ;  whose 
jealous  temper  (they  say  I  was  jealous  too,  but,  pray  God, 
I  am  cured  of  that  sin)  and  whose  vanity  no  words  or  prayers 
of   mine    can   cure  —  only   suffering,    only   experience,    and 

20  remorse  afterwards.  Oh !  Henry,  she  will  make  no  man 
happy  Avho  loves  her.  Go  away,  my  son :  leave  her :  love 
us  always  and  think  kindly  of  us :  and  for  me,  my  dear,  you 
know  these  walls  contain  all  I  love  in  the  world." 

\n  after  life,  did  Esmond  find  the  words  true  which  his  fond 

25  mistress  spoke  from  her  sad  heart  ?  Warning  he  had  :  but  I 
doubt  others  had  warning  before  his  time,  and  since :  and  he 
benefited  by  it  as  most  men  do. 

My  young  Lord  Viscount  was  exceedingly  sorry  when  he 
licard  that  Harry  could  not  come  to  the  cock-match  with  him, 

30  and  must  go  to  London ;  but  no  doubt  my  lord  consoled  him- 
self when  the  Hampshire  cocks  won  the  match ;  and  he  saw 
every  one  of  the  battles,  and  crowed  properly  over  the  con- 
quered Sussex°  gentlemen. 

As  Esmond  rode  towards  town  his  servant  coming  up  to 

35  him  informed  him  with  a  grin,  that  Mistress  Beatrix  had 
brought  out  a  new  gown,  and  blue  stockings  for  that  day's 
dirmer,  in  which  she  intended  to  a])pear,  and  had  flown  into 
a  rage  and  given  her  maid  a  slap  on  the  face  soon  after  she 
heard  he  was  going  away.     Mistress  Beatrix's  woman,  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  22Q 

fellow  said,  came  down  to  the  servants'  hall,  crying  and  Tvith 
the  mark  of  a  blow  still  on  her  cheek:  but  Esmond  per- 
emptorily ordered  him  to  fall  back  and  be  silent,  and  rode 
on  with  thoughts  enough  of  his  own  to  occupy  him  —  some 
sad  ones,  some  inexpressibly  dear  and  pleasant.  5 

His  mistress,  from  whom  he  had  been  a  year  separated, 
was  his  dearest  mistress  again.  The  family  from  which  he 
had  been  j^arted,  and  wliich  he  loved  with  the  fondest  de- 
votion, was  his  family  once  more.  If  Beatrix's  beauty 
shone  upon  him,  it  was  with  a  friendly  lustre,  and  he  could  la 
regard  it  with  much  such  a  delight  as  he  brought  away  after 
seeing  the  beautiful  pictures  of  the  smiling  jVIadonnas  in  the 
convent  at  Cadiz,  when  he  was  dispatched  thither  with  a  flag : 
and  as  for  his  mistress,  'twas  difficult  to  say  with  what  a 
feeling  he  regarded  her.  Twas  happiness  to  have  seen  her :  15 
'twas  no  great  pang  to  part ;  a  filial  tenderness,  a  love  that 
was  at  once  respect  and  protection  filled  his  mind  as  he 
thought  of  her ;  and  near  her  or  far  from  her,  and  from  that 
day  until  now,  and  from  now  till  death  is  past,  and  beyond 
it,  he  prays  that  sacred  flame  may  ever  burn.  20 


CHAPTER  IX 

I   MAKE    THE    CAMPAIGN   OF    1704 

Mr.  Esmond  rode  up  to  London  then,  where,  if  the  dowager 
had  been  angry  at  the  abrupt  leave  of  absence  he  took,  she 
was  mightily  pleased  at  his  speedy  return. 

He  went  immediately  and  paid  his  court  to  his  new  general, 
General  Lumley,  who  received  him  graciously,  having  known  25 
his  father,  and  also,  he  was  pleased  to  say,  having  had  the 
very  best  accounts  of  Mr.  Esmond  from  the  officer  whose 
aide-de-camp  he  had  been  at  Vigo.  During  this  winter  ]\Ir. 
Esmond  was  gazetted  to  a  lieutenantcy  in  Brigadier  Webb's  ° 
regiment  of  Fusileers,  then  with  their  colonel  in  Flanders ;  30 
but  being  now  attached  to  the  suite  of  Mr.  Lumley,  Esmond 
did  not  join  his  own  regiment  until  more  than  a  j^ear  after- 
wards, and  after  his  return  from  the  campaign  of  Blenheim, 


"240  HENRY   ESMOND 

which  was  fought  the  next  year.  The  campaign  began  very 
early,  our  troops  marching,  out  of  their  quarters  before  the 
winter  was  almost  over,  and  investing  the  city  of  Bonn,°  on 
the  Rhine,  under  the  Duke's  command.  His  Grace  joined  the 
5  army  in  deep  grief  of  mind,  with  crape  on  his  sleeve,  and  his 
household  in  mourning;  and  the  very  same  packet  which 
brought  the  Commander-in-Chief  over,  brought  letters  to 
the  forces  which  preceded  him,  and  one  from  l*is  dear  mis- 
tress to  Esmond,   which   interested  him  not  a  httle. 

10  The  young  Marquis  of  Blandford,  his  Grace's  son,  who  had 
been  entered  in  King's  College  in  Cambridge  (whither  my 
Lord  Viscount  had  also  gone,  to  Trinity,  with  Mr.  Tusher  as 
his  governor),  had  been  seized  with  small-pox,  and  was  dead 
at  sixteen  years  of  age,  and  so  poor  Frank's  schemes  for  his 

15  sister's  advancement  were  over,  and  that  innocent  childish 
passion  nipped  in  the  birth. 

Esmond's  mistress  would  have  had  him  return,  at  least  her 
letters  hinted  as  much ;  but  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy 
this  was  impossible,  and  our  young  man  took  his  humble 

20  share  in  the  siege,  which  need  not  be  describ3d  here,  and  had 
the  good  luck  to  escape  without  a  wound  of  any  sort,  and  to 
drink  his  general's  health  after  the  surrender.  He  was  in  con- 
stant military  duty  this  year,  and  did  not  think  of  asking  for 
a  leave  of  absence,  as  one  or  two  of  his  less  fortunate  friends 

25  did,  who  were  cast  away  in  that  tremendous  storm  which 
happened  towards  the  close  of  November,  that  '"'  which  of  late 
o'er  pale  Britannia  past"  (as  Mr.  Addison°  sang  of  it),  and 
in  which  scores  of  our  greatest  ships  and  15,000  of  our  seamen 
went  down. 

3D  They  said_  that  our  Duke  was  quite  heart-broken  by  the 
calamity  which  had  befallen  his  family;  but  his  enemies 
found  that  he  could  subdue  them,  as  well  as  master  his  grief. 
Successful  as  had  been  this  great  General's  operations  in  the 
past  year,  they  were  far  enhanced  by  the  splendour  of  his 

35  victory  in  the  ensuing  campaign.  His  Grace  the  Captain- 
General  went  to  England  after  Bonn,  and  our  army  fell  back 
into  Holland,  whore,  in  April,  1704,  his  Grace  again  found  the 
troops  embarking  from  Harwich"  and  landing  at  Maesland 
Sluys°:   thence  his  Grace  came  immediately  to  the  Hague,° 


HENRY   ESMOND  241 

where  he  received  the  foreign  ministers,  general  officers,  and 
other  people  of  qualit,y.  The  greatest  honours  were  paid 
to  his  Grace  everywhere,  -^  at  the  Hague,  Utrecht,  Rure- 
monde,  and  Maestricht°  ;  the  civic  authorities  coming  to  meet 
his  coaches :  salvos  of  cannon  saluting  him,  canopies  of  5 
state  being  erected  for  him  where  he  stopped,  and  feasts 
prepared  for  the  numerous  gentlemen  following  in  his  suite. 
His  Grace  reviewed  the  troops  of  the  States-General  between 
Liege°  and  Maestricht,  and  afterwards  the  English  forces, 
under  the  command  of  General  Churchill,  near  Bois-le-Duc,°  ic 
Every  preparation  was  made  for  a  long  march  ;  and  the  army 
heard,  with  no  small  elation,  that  it  was  the  Commander-in 
Chief's  intention  to  carry  the  war  out  of  the  Low  Countries, 
and  to  march  on  the  Mozelle.°  Before  leaving  our  camp  at 
Maestricht,  we  heard  that  the  French,  under  the  Marshal  15 
Villeroy,  were  also  bound  towards  the  Mozelle. 

Towards  the  end  of  IMay,  the  army  reached  Coblentz°  ;  and 
next  day,  his  Grace,  ancl  the  generals  accompanying  him, 
went  to  visit  the  Elector  of  Treves°  at  his  Castle  of  Ehren- 
breitstein,°  the  Horse  and  Dragoons  passing  the  Rhine  whilst  20 
the  Duke  was  entertained  at  a  grand  feast  by  the  Elector. 
All  as  yet  was  novelty,  festivity,  and  splendour,  —  a  brilliant 
march  of  a  great  and  glorious  army  through  a  friendly  country, 
and  sure  through  some  of  the  most  beautiful  scenes  of  nature 
which  I  ever  witnessed.  25 

The  Foot  and  Artillery,  following  after  the  Horse  as  quick 
as  possible,  crossed  the  Rhine  under  Ehrenbreitstein,  and  so 
to  Castel,°  over  against  JMayntz,*^  in  which  city  his  Grace,,  his 
generals,  and  his  retinue  were  received  at  the  landing-place 
by  the  Elector's  coaches,  carried  to  his  Highness's  palace  30 
amidst  the  thunder  of  cannon,  and  then  once  more  magnifi- 
cently entertained.  Gidhngen,°  in  Bavaria,  was  appointed 
as  the  general  rendezvous  of  the  army,  and  thither,  by  dif- 
ferent routes,  the  whole  forces  of  English,  Dutch,  Danes,  and 
German  auxiliaries  took  their  way.  The  Foot  nnd  Artillery  35 
under  General  Churchill  passed  the  Xeckar,°  at  Heidelberg  °; 
and  Esmond  had  an  opportunity  of  seeing  that  city  and 
palace,  once  so  famous  and  beautiful  (though  shattered  and 
battered  by  the  French,   under  Turenne,  in  the  late  war). 


242  HENRY   ESMOND 

where  his  grandsire  had  served  the  beautiful  and  unfortunate 
Electress- Palatine,  °  the  first  King  Charles's  sister. 

AAj  Mindelsheim,°  the  famous  Prince  of  Savoy°  came  to 
visit  our  commander,  all  of  us  crowding  eagerly  to  get  a  sight 

5  of  that  brilliant  and  intrepid  warrior;  and  our  troops  were 
drawn  up  in  battalia  before  the  Prince,  who  was  pleased  to 
express  his  admiration  of  this  noble  English  army.  At 
length  we  came  in  sight  of  the  enemy  between  Dillingen  and 
Lawingen,  the  Brentz°  lying  between  the  two  armies.     The 

lo  Elector,  judging  that  Donauwort°  would  be  the  point  of  his 
Grace's  attack,  sent  a  strong  detachment  of  his  best  troops 
to  Count  Darcos,  who  was  posted  at  Schellenberg,°  near 
that  place,  where  great  intrenchments  were  thrown  up,  and 
thousands  of  pioneers  employed  to  strengthen  the  position. 

15  On  the  2nd  of  July,  his  Grace  stormed  the  post,  with  what 
success  on  our  part  need  scarce  be  told.  His  Grace  advanced 
with  six  thousand  Foot,  Enghsh  and  Dutch,  thirt}^  squad- 
rons, and  three  regiments  of  Imperial  Cuirassiers,  the  Duke 
crossing  the  river  at  the  heai  of  the  cavahy.     Although  our 

20  troops  made  the  attack  with  unparalleled  courage  and  fury,  — 
rushing  up  to  the  very  guns  of  the  enemy,  and  being  slaugh- 
tered before  their  works,  —  we  were  driven  back  many  times, 
and  should  not  have  carried  them,  but  that  the  Imperialists 
came  up  under  the  Prince  of  Baden, °  when  the  enemy  could 

25  make  no  head  against  us:  we  pursued  him  into  the  trenches, 
making  a  terrible  slaughter  there,  and  into  the  very  Danube, 
where  a  great  part  of  his  troops,  following  the  example  of 
their  generals,  Count  Darcos  and  the  Elector  himself,  tried 
to  sav^e  themselves  by  swimming.     Our  army  entered  Donau- 

30  wort,  whicjh  the  Bavarians  evacuated ;  and  where  'twas  said 
the  Elector  purposed  to  have  given  us  a  warm  reception,  by 
burning  us  in  our  beds;  the  cellars  of  the  houses,  when  we 
took  jjosscssion  of  them,  being  found  stuffed  with  straw.  But 
though  the  links  were  there,  the  link-boys  had  run  away. 

35  The  townsmen  saved  their  houses,  and  our  General  took  pos- 
session of  the  enemy's  ammunition  in  the  arsenals,  his  stores, 
and  magazines.  P'ivc  days  afterwards  a  great  "Te  Deum" 
was  sung  in  Prince  Lewis's  army,  and  a  solemn  day  of  thanks- 
giving held  in  our  own;   the  Prince  of  Savoy's  compliments 


HENRY  ESMOND  243 

coming  to  his  Grace  the  Captain-General  during  the  day's 
rehgious  ceremony,  and  concluding,  as  it  were,  with  an  Amen. 
And  now,  having  seen  a  great  militar}-  march  through  a 
friendly  country;  the  pomps  and  festivities  of  more  than 
one  German  court ;  the  severe  struggle  of  a  hotly-contestecl  5 
battle,  and  the  triumph  of  \ictory:  Mr.  Esmond  beheld 
another  part  of  military  duty;  our  troops  entering  the 
enemy's  territory,  and  putting  all  around  them  to  fire  and 
sword :  burning  farms,  wasted  fields,  shrieking  women, 
slaughtered  sons  and  fathers,  and  di-unken  soldiery,  cursing  i 
and  carousing  in  the  midst  of  tears,  terror,  and  murder. 
Why  does  the  stately  ^luse  of  history, °  that  delights  in 
describing  the  valour  of  heroes  and  the  grandeur  of  con- 
quest, leave  out  these  scenes,  so  brutal,  mean,  and  degrad- 
ing, that  yet  form  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the  drama  of  15 
w^ar?  You,  gentlemen  of  England,  who  live  at  home  at 
ease,  and  compliment  yourselves  in  the  songs  of  triumph 
with  which  our  chieftains  are  bepraised,  —  you,  pretty 
maidens,  that  come  tumbhng  down  the  stairs  when  the 
fife  and  drum  call  you,  and  huzzah  for  the  British  Grenadiers,  20 
—  do  you  take  account  that  these  items  go  to  make  up  the 
amount  of  the  triumph  you  admire,  and  form  part  of  the 
duties  of  the  heroes  you  fondle  ?  Our  chief,  whom  England 
and  all  Europe,  saving  only  the  Frenchmen,  worshipped 
almost,  had  this  of  the  god-like  in  him,  that  he  was  im-  25 
passible  before  victory,  before  danger,  before  defeat.  Before 
the  greatest  obstacle  or  the  most  tri\'ial  ceremony;  before 
a  hundred  thousand  men  drawn  in  battaha,  or  a  peasant 
slaughtered  at  the  door  of  his  burning  hovel;  before  a 
carouse  of  drunken  German  lords,  or  a  monarch's  court,  3c 
or  a  cottage-table,  where  his  plans  were  laid,  or  an  enemy's 
battery,  vomiting  flame  and  death,  and  strewing  corpses 
round  about  him ;  —  he  was  always  cold,  calm,  resolute, 
like  fate.  He  performed  a  treason  or  a  court-bov\^;  he  told 
a  falsehood  as  black  as  Styx,°  as  easily  as  he  paid  a  com-  35 
pliment  or  spoke  about  the  weather.  He  took  a  mistresv*?, 
and  left  her;  he  betrayed  his  benefactor,  and  supported 
him,  or  would  have  murdered  him,  with  Zhe  same  calmness 
always,   and  having  no   more   remorse   than  Clotho,   when 


244  HENEY   ESMOND 

she  weaves  the  thread,  or  Lachesis,°  when  she  cuts  it.  In 
the  hour  of  battle  I  have  heard  the  Prince  of  Savoy's 
officers  say,  the  Prince  became  possessed  with  a  sort 
of  warUke  fury ;  his  eyes  Hghted  up ;  he  rushed  hither 
5  and  thither,  raging;  he  shrieked  curses  and  encourage- 
ment, yelHng  and  harking  his  bloody  war-dogs  on,  and 
himself  always  at  the  first  of  the  hunt.  Our  Duke  was 
as  calm  at  the  mouth  of  the  cannon,  as  at  the  door  of  a 
drawing-room.     Perhaps  he  could  not  have  been  the  great 

10  man  he  was,  had  he  had  a  heart  either  for  love  or  hatred, 
or  pity  or  fear,  or  regret  or  remorse.  He  achieved  the 
highest  deed  of  daring,  or  deepest  calculation  of  thought, 
as  he  performed  the  very  meanest  action  of  which  a  man  is 
capable;    told  a  lie,  or  cheated  a  fond  woman,  or  robbed 

15  a  poor  beggar  of  a  halfpenny  with  a  like  awful  serenity 
and  equal  capacity  of  the  highest  and  lowest  acts  of  our 
nature. 

His  qualities  were  pretty  well  known  in  the  army,  where 
there  were  parties  of  all  pohticks,  and  of  plenty  of  shrewd- 

20  ness  and  wit ;  but  there  existed  such  a  perfect  confidence  in 
him,  as  the  first  captain  of  the  world,  and  such  a  faith  and 
admiration  in  his  prodigious  genius  and  fortune,  .that  the 
very  men  whom  he  notoriously  cheated  of  their  pay,  the 
chiefs  whom  he  used  and  injured  —  (for  he  used  all  men, 

25  great  and  small,  that  came  near  him,  as  his  instruments 
alike,  and  took  something  of  theirs,  either  some  quality 
or  some  property,  —  the  blood  of  a  soldier,  it  might  be,  or  a 
jewelled  hat,  or  a  hundred  thousand  crowns  from  a  king,  or 
a  portion  out  of  a  starving  sentinel's  three  farthings;    or 

30  (when  he  was  young)  a  kiss  from  a  woman,  and  the  gold 
chain  off"  her  neck,  taking  all  he  could  from  woman  or  man, 
and  having,  as  I  have  said,  this  of  the  god-like  in  him,  that 
he  could  see  a  hco  perish  or  a  sparrow  fall,  with  the  same 
amount  of  sympathy  for  either.     Not  that  he  had  no  tears; 

35  he  (^ould  always  order  up  this  reserve  at  the  i)ropcr  moment 
to  battle ;  he  could  draw  upon  tears  or  smiles  alike,  and 
whenever  need  was  for  using  this  cheap  coin,  lie  would 
cringe  to  a  shoeblack,  as  he  would  flatter  a  minister  or  a 
monarch;    be  haughty,  be  humble,  threaten,  repent,  weep, 


HENRY   ESMOND  245 

grasp  your  hand  or  stab  you  whenever  he  saw  occasion)  — 
But  yet  those  of  the  army,  who  knew  him  best  and  had  suf- 
fered most  from  him,  admired  him  most  of  all ;  and  as  he 
rode  along  the  lines  to  battle  or  galloped  up  in  the  nick  of 
time  to  a  battalion  reeling  from  before  the  enemy's  charge  5 
or  shot,  the  fainting  men  and  officers  got  new  courage  as 
they  saw  the  splendid  calm  of  his  face,  and  felt  that  his  will 
made  them  irresistible. 

After  the  great  victory  of  Blenheim  the  enthusiasm  of 
the  army  for  the  Duke,  even  of  his  bitterest  personal  enemies  lo 
in  it,  amounted  to  a  sort  of  rage  —  nay,  the  very  officers 
who  cursed  him  in  their  hearts,  were  among  the  most  frantick 
to  cheer  him.  Who  could  refuse  his  meed  of  admiration 
to  such  a  victory  and  such  a  victor  ?  Not  he  who  \\Tites : 
a  man  may  profess  to  be  ever  so  much  a  philosopher;  but  15 
he  who  fought  on  that  day  must  feel  a  thrill  of  pride  as  he 
recalls  it. 

The  French  right °  was  posted  near  to  the  village  of  Blen- 
heim, on  the  Danube,  where  the  ^larshal  Tallard's°  quarters 
were ;  their  line  extending  through,  it  may  be,  a  league  and  20 
a  half,  before  Lutzingen  and  up  to  a  woody  hill,  round  the 
base  of  which,  and  acting  against  the  Prince  of  Savo}^,  were 
forty  of  his  squadrons.  Here  was  a  village  that  the  French- 
men had  burned,  the  wood  being,  in  fact,  a- better  shelter 
and  easier  of  guard  than  any  village.  25 

Before  these  two  villages  and  the  French  lines  ran  a  little 
stream,  not  more  than  two  foot  broad,  through  a  marsh 
(that  was  mostly  dried  up  from  the  heats  of  the  weather), 
and  this  stream  was  the  only  separation  between  the  two 
armies  —  ours  coming  up  and  ranging  themselves  in  line  3° 
of  battle  before  the  French,  at  six  o'clock  in  the  morning; 
so  that  our  line  was  quite  \dsible  to  theirs;  and  the  whole 
of  this  great  plain  was  black  and  swarming  with  troops  for 
hours  before  the  cannonading  began. 

On  one  side  and  the  other  this  cannonading  lasted  many  35 
hours.     The  French  guns  being  in  position  in  front  of  their 
hne,  and  doing  severe  damage  among  our  Horse  especially, 
and  on  our  right  wing  of  Imperialists  under  the  Prince  of 
Savoy,    who    could    neither    advance    his    artillery    nor   his 


246  HENRY    ESMOND 

lines,  the  ground  before  him  being  cut  up  by  ditches,  morasses, 
and  very  difficult  of  passage  for  the  guns. 

It  was  past  mid-day  when  the  attack  began  on  our  left, 
where  Lord  Cutts  commanded,  the  bravest  and  most  beloved 

5  officer  in  the  English  army.  And  now,  as  if  to  make  his 
experience  in  war  complete,  our  young  aide-de-camp  ha^dng 
seen  two  great  armies  facing  each  other  in  line  of  battle,  and 
had  the  honour  of  riding  with  orders  from  one  end  to  other 
of  the  line,  came  in  for  a  not  uncommon  accompaniment  of 

10  militar^^  g^o^y,  and  was  knocked  on  the  head,  along  ^\\Xh. 
many  hundred  of  brave  fellows,  almost  at  the  very  commence- 
ment of  this  famous  day  of  Blenheim.  A  little  after  noon,  the 
disposition  for  attack  being  completed  with  much  delay  and 
difficulty,  and  under  a  severe  fire  from  the  enemy's  guns, 

15  that  were  better  posted  and  more  numerous  than  ours,  a 
body  of  English  and  Hessians,  with  IMajor-General  Rowe 
commanding  at  the  extreme  left  of  our  line,  marched  upon 
Blenheim,  advancing  with  great  gallantry,  the  Major-General 
on  foot,  with  his  officers,  at  the  head  of  the  column,  and 

20  marching,  with  his  hat  off,  intrepidly  in^  the  face  of  the 
enemy,  who  was  pouring  in  a  tremendous  fire  from  his  guns 
and  musketry,  to  which  our  people  were  instructed  not  to 
reply,  except  with  pike  and  bayonet  when  they  reached 
the  French   palisades.      To  these  Rowe  walked    intrepidly, 

25  and  struck  the  wood-work  with  his  sword,  before  our  people 
charged  it.  He  was  shot  down  at  the  instant  with  his 
colonel,  major,  and  several  officers ;  and  our  troops  cheering 
and  huzzaing,  and  coming  on,  as  they  did,  with  immense 
resolution  and  gallantry,  were  nevertheless  stopped  by  the 

30  murderous  fire  from  behind  the  enemy's  defences,  and  then 
attacked  in  flank  by  a. furious  charge  of  French  horse  which 
swept  out  of  Blenheim,  and  cut  down  our  men  in  great 
numbers.  Thre^  Wcx-ca  and  desperate  assaults  of  our  Foot 
were  made  and  repulsed  by  the  enemy ;   so  that  our  columns 

35  of  Foot  were  quite  shatt-ered,  and  fell  back,  scrambling  over 
the  littk^  rivuk't,  which  we  had  crossed  so  resolutely  an  hour 
before,  and  pursued  by  the  French  cavalry,  slaughtering  us 
and  cutting  us  down. 

And  now  the  conquerors  W€rc  met  by  a  furious  charge  of 


HENRY  ESMOND  247 

English  horse  under  Esmond's  general,  General  Lumley, 
behind  whose  squadrons  the  flying  Foot  found  refuge,  and 
formed  again,  whilst  Lumley  drove  back  the  French  horse, 
charging  up  to  the  village  of  Blenheim  and  the  palisades 
where  Rowe  and  many  hundred  more  gallant  Englishmen  lay  5 
in  slaughtered  heaps.  Beyond  this  moment,  and  of  this 
famous  victory,  Mr.  Esmond  knows  nothing;  for  a  shot 
brought  clown  his  horse  and  our  young  gentleman  on  it, 
who  fell  crushed  and  stunned  under  the  animal;  and  came 
to  his  senses  he  kno"\YS  not  how  long  after,  only  to  lose  them  10 
again  from  pain  and  loss  of  blood.  A  dim  sense,  as  of  people 
groaning  round  about  him,  a  wild  incoherent  thought  or 
two  for  her  who  occupied  so  much  of  his  heart  now,  and  that 
here  his  career,  and  his  hopes,  and  misfortunes  were  ended, 
he  remembers  in  the  course  of  these  hours.  When  he  woke  15 
up  it  was  with  a  pang  of  extreme  pain,  his  breast-plate 
was  taken  off,  his  servant  was  holding  his  head  up,  the  good 
and  faithful  lad  of  Hampshire^  was  blubbering  over  his  master, 
whom  he  found  and  had  thought  dead,  and  a  surgeon  was 
probing  a  wound  in  the  shoulder,  which  he  must  have  got  20 
at  the  same  moment  when  his  horse  was  shot  and  fell  over 
him.  The  battle  was  over  at  this  end  of  the  field,  by  this 
time ;  the  village  was  in  possession  of  the  English,  its  brave 
defenders  prisoners,  or  fled,  or  drowned,  many  of  them,  in 
the  neighbouring  waters  of  Donau.  But  for  honest  Lock-  25 
wood's  faithful  search  after  his  master  there  had  no  doubt 
been  an  end  of  Esmond  here,  and  of  this  his  story.  The 
marauders  were  out  rifling  the  bodies  as  they  lay  on  the 
field,  and  Jack  had  brained  one  of  these  gentry  with  the 
club-end  of  his  musket,  who  had  eased  Esmond  of  his  hat  3c 
and  perriwig,  his  purse,  and  fine  silver-mounted  pistols, 
which  the  dowager  gave  him,  and  was  fumbling  in  his  pockets 
for  further  treasure,  when  Jack  Lockw^ood  came  up  and  put 
an  end  to  the  scoundrel's  triumph. 

Hospitals  for  our  wounded  were  established  at  Blenheim,  35 
and  here  for  several  weeks  Esmond  lay  in  xqyj  great  danger 
of  his  hfe;    the  wound  was  not  very  great,  from  which  he 

^  My  mistress  before  I  went  this  campaign  sent  me  John  Lockwood 
out  of  Walcote,  who  hath  ever  since  remained  with  me.  —  H.  E.° 


248  HENRY    ESMOND 

suffered,  and  the  ball  extracted  b}'  the  surgeon  on  the  spot 
where  our  young  gentleman  received  it ;  but  a  fever  set  in 
next  day,  as  he  was  lying  in  hospital,  and  that  almost  carried 
him  away.  Jack  Lockwood  said  he  talked  in  the  wildest 
5  manner,  during  his  delirium;  that  he  called  himself  the 
Marcjuis  of  Esmond,  and  seizing  one  of  the  surgeon's  assistants 
who  came  to  dress  his  wounds,  swore  that  he  was  Madam 
Beatrix,  and  that  he  would  make  her  a  duchess  if  she  would 
but  say  yes.     He  was  passing  the  days  in  these  crazy  fancies, 

io  and  vana  somnia°  whilst  the  army  was  singing  "Te  Deum" 
for  the  victor}',  and  those  famous  festivities  were  taking 
place  at  wnich  our  Duke,  now  made  a  Prince  of  the  Empire, 
was  entertained  by  the  King  of  the  Romans°  and  his  nobility. 
His  Grace  went  home  by  Berlin  and  Hanover, °  and  Esmond 

15  lost  the  festivities  which  took  place  at  those  cities,  and  which 
his  general  shared  in  company  of  the  other  general  officers 
who  travelled  with  our  great  captain.  When  he  could 
move  it  was  by  the  Duke  of  Wirtemburg's  city  of  Stuttgard 
that   he   made   his   way   homewards,    revisiting   Heidelberg 

20  again,  whence  he  went  to  Manheim,  and  hence  had  a  tedious 
but  easy  water  journey  down  the  river  of  Rhine,  which  he  had 
thought  a  delightful  and  beautiful  voyage  indeed,  but  that 
his  heart  was  longing  for  home,  and  something  far  more 
beautiful  and  delightful. 

25  As  bright  and  welcome  as  the  eyes  almost  of  his  mistress 
shone  the  lights  of  Harwich,  as  the  packet  came  in  from 
Holland.  It  was  not  many  hours  ere  he,  Esmond,  was  in 
London,  of  that  you  may  be  sure,  and  received  with  open 
arms  by  the  old  dowager  of  Chelsea,  who  vowed  in  her  jargon 

30  of  French  and  ICnglish,  that  he  had  the  air  nohle,  that  his 
pallor  embellished  him,  that  he  was  an  Amadis  and  deserved 
a  Gloriana,°  and,  oh!  flames  and  darts!  what  was  his  joy 
at  hearing  that  his  mistress  was  come  into  waiting,  and  was 
now  with  her  Majesty  at  Kensington  !     Although  Mr.  Esmond 

35  had  told  Jack  Lockwood  to  get  horses  and  they  would  ride 
for  Winchester  that  night,  when  he  heard  this  news  he 
countermanded  the  horses  at  onc<3 ;  his  business  lay  no  longer 
in  Hants;  all  his  hope  and  desire  lay  within  a  couple  of 
miles  of  him  in  Kensington  Park  wall.     Poor  Harry  had  never 


HENRY   ESMOND  249 

looked  in  the  glass  before  so  eagerly  to  see  whether  he  had 
the  hel  air,  and  his  paleness  really  did  become  him  :  he 
never  took  such  pains  about  the  curl  of  his  perriwig,  and  the 
taste  of  his  embroidery  and  point-lace,  as  now,  before  Mr. 
Amadis  presented  himself  to  Madam  Gloriana.  Was  the  5 
fire  of  the  French  lines  half  so  murderous  as  the  killing 
glances  from  her  ladyship's  eyes?  Oh!  darts  and  raptures, 
how  beautiful  were  they  ! 

And  as,  before  the  blazing  sun  of  morning,  the  moon  fades 
away  in  the  sky  almost  invisible ;  —  Esmond  thought,  with  lo 
a  blush  perhaps,  of  another  sweet  pale  face,  sad  and  faint, 
and  fading  out  of  sight,  with  its  sweet  fond  gaze  of  affection; 
such  a  last  look  it  seemed  to  cast  as  Eurydice°  might  have 
given,  yearning  after  her  lover,  when  Fate  and  Pluto  sum- 
moned her,  and  she  passed  away  into  the  shades.  15 


CHAPTER    X 

AN    OLD    STORY   ABOUT    A    FOOL    AND    A    WOMAN 

Any  taste  for  pleasure  which  Esmond  had  (and  he  liked  to 
desipere  in  loco°  neither  more  nor  less  than  most  young  men 
of  his  age)  he  could  now  gratify,  to  the  utmost  extent,  and 
in  the  best  company  which  the  town  afforded.  When  the 
army  went  into  winter  quarters  abroad,  those  of  the  officers  20 
who  had  interest  or  money,  easily  got  leave  of  absence,  and 
found  it  much  pleasanter  to  spend  their  time  in  Pall  Mall 
and  Hyde  Park,  than  to  pass  the  winter  away  behind  the 
.fortifications  of  the  dreary  old  Flanders  towns,  where  the 
English  troops  were  gathered.  Yachts  and  packets  passed  25 
daily  between  the  Dutch  and  Flemish  ports  and  Harwich ; 
the  roads  thence  to  London  and  the  great  inns  were  crowdecl 
with  army  gentlemen;  the  taverns  and  ordinaries  of  the 
town  swarmed  with  red-coats;  and  our  great  Duke's  levees 
at  St.  James's  were  as  thronged  as  they  had  been  at  Ghent  3° 
and  Brussels, °  where  we  treated  him  as  he  us,  with  the  gran- 
deur and  ceremony  of  a  sovereign.  Though  Esmond  had 
been  appointed  to  a  lieutenantcy  in  the  Fusileer  regiment, 


250  HENRY   ESMOND 

of  which  that  celebrated  officer,  Brigadier  John  Richmond 
Webb,  was  colonel,  he  had  never  joined  the  regiment,  nor 
been  introduced  to  its  excellent  commander,  though  thej 
had  made  the  same  campaign  together,  and  been  engaged 
5  in  the  same  battle.  But  being  aide-de-camp  to  General 
Lumley,  who  commanded  the  division  of  Horse,  and  the 
army  marching  to  its  point  of  destination  on  the  Danube 
by  different  routes,  Esmond  had  not  fallen  in,  as  yet,  with  his 
commander  and  future  comrades  of  the  fort ;   and  it  was  in 

lo  London,  in  Golden  Square, °  where  Major-General  Webb 
lodged,  that  Captain  Esmond  had  the  honour  of  first  pajnng 
his  respects  to  his  friend,  patron,  and  commander  of  after 
days. 

Those    who    remember    this    brilliant    and    accomplished 

15  gentleman,  may  recollect  his  character,  upon  which  he  prided 
himself,  I  think,  not  a  little,  of  being  the  handsomest  man 
in  the  army;  a  poet°  who  writ  a  dull  copy  of  verses  upon 
the  battle  of  Oudenarde  three  years  after,  describing  Webb, 
says :  — 

20  "  To  noble  danger  Webb  conducts  the  way, 

His  great  example  all  his  troops  obey; 

Before  the  front  the  general  sternly  rides, 

With  such  an  air  as  Mars°  to  battle  strides : 

Propitious  heaven  must  sure  a  hero  save, 
25  Like  Paris°  handsome,  and  like  Hector°  brave." 

Mr.  Webb  thought  these  verses  quite  as  fine  as  Mr.  Ad- 
dison's on  the  Blenheim  Campaign,  and,  indeed,  to  be  Hector 
a  la  mode  de  Pan's  °  was  a  part  of  this  gallant  gentleman's 
ambition.     It  would  have  been  difficult  to  find  an  officer  in 

30  the  whole  army,  or  amongst  the  splendid  courtiers  and 
cavaliers  of  the  Maison  du  Iloy,°  that  fought  under  Ven- 
dosme  aifld  Villeroy°  in  the  army  opposed  to  ours,  who  was 
a  more  accomplished  soldi(;r  and  perfect  gentleman,  and 
either  braver  or  better-looking.     And,  if  Mr.  Webb  believed 

35  of  himself  what  the  world  said  of  him,  and  was  deeply  con- 
vinced of  his  own  indis))utable  genius,  beauty,  and  valour, 
who  has  a  right  to  f|uarrel  with  him  very  much  ?  This  self- 
content  of  his  kept  him  in  general  good  humour,  of  which  his 
friends  and  dependents  got  the  benefit. 


HENRY   ESMOND  251 

He  came  of  a  very  ancient  Wiltshire°  family,  which  he 
respected  above  all  families  in  the  world ;  he  could  prove 
a  lineal  descent  from  King  Edward  the  First,  and  his  first 
ancestor,  Roaldus  de  Richmond,  rode  by  William  the  Con- 
queror's side  on  Hastings  field. °  "We  were  gentlemen,  5 
Esmond,"  he  used  to  say,  "when  the  Churchills  were  horse- 
boys." He  was  a  very  tall  man,  standing  in  his  pumps  six 
feet  three  inches  (in  his  great  jack-boots,  with  his  tall  fair 
peiTiwig,  and  hat  and  feather,  he  could  not  have  been  less 
than  eight  feet  high).  "I  am  taller  than  Churchill,"  he  ic 
would  say,  surveying  himself  in  the  glass,  "and  I  am  a  better 
made  man ;  and  if  the  women  won't  like  a  man  that  hasn't  a 
wart  on  his  nose,  faith,  I  can't  help  myself,  and  Churchill  has 
the  better  of  me  there."  Indeed,  he  was  always  measuring 
himself  with  the  Duke,  and  always  asking  his  friends  to  meas-  15 
ure  them.  And  talldng  in  this  frank  way,  as  he  would  do, 
over  his  cups,  wags  would  laugh  and  encourage  him ;  friends 
would  be  sorry  for  him;  schemers  and  flatterers  would  egg 
him  on,  and  tale-bearers  carry  the  stories  to  headquarters, 
and  widen  the  difference  which  already  existed  there  between  2c 
the  great  captain  and  one  of  the  ablest  and  bravest  lieu- 
tenants he  ever  had. 

His  rancour  against  the  Duke  was  so  apparent,  that  one 
saw  it  in  the  first  half-hour's  conversation  with  General 
Webb;  and  his  lady,  who  adored  her  General,  and  thought  25 
him  a  hundred  times  taller,  handsomer,  and  braver  than  a 
prodigal  nature  had  made  him,  hated  the  great  Duke  with 
such  an  intensity  as  it  becomes  faithful  wives  to  feel  against 
their  husbands'  enemies.  Xot  that  my  Lord  Duke  was  so 
yet ;  Mr.  Webb  had  said  a  thousand  things  against  him,  which  30 
his  superior  had  pardoned ;  and  his  Grace,  whose  spies  were 
everywhere,  had  heard  a  thousand  things  more  that  Webb 
had  never  said.  But  it  cost  this  great  man  no  pains  to  par- 
don;  and  he  passed  oA^er  an»  injury  or  a  benefit  alike  easily. 

Should  any  child  of  mine  take  the  pains  to  read  these,  his  35 
ancestor's  memoirs,  I  would  not  have  him  judge  of  the  great 
Duke°  ^  by  what  a  cotemporary  has  written  of  him.     Xo  man 

'  This  passage  in  the  Memoirs  of  Esmond  is  written  on  a  leaf  in- 
serted into  the  MS.  book  and  dated  1744,  probably  after  he  had 
heard  of  the  Duchess's  death. 


252  HENRY   ESMOND 

hath  been  so  immensely  lauded  and  decried  as  this  great 
statesman  and  warrior;  as,  indeed,  no  man  ever  deserved 
better  the  ver}^  greatest  praise  and  the  strongest  censure. 
If  the  present  writer  joins  with  the  latter  faction,  very  likely 
5  a  private  pique  of  his  own  may  be  the  cause  of  his  ill-feeling. 
On  presenting  himself  at  the  Commander-in-Chief's  levee, 
his  Grace  had  not  the  least  remembrance  of  General  Lum- 
ley's  aide-de-camp,  and  though  he  knew  Esmond's  family 
perfectly   well,    having   served   with   both   lords    (my   Lord 

10  Francis  and  the  Viscount,  Esmond's  father)  in  Flanders,  and 
in  the  Duke  of  York's  Guard,  the  Duke  of  ]\farlborough, 
who  was  friendly  and  serviceable  to  the  (so-st3ded)  legitima-te 
representatives  of  the  Viscount  CastlcAvood,  took  no  sort  of 
notice  of  the  poor  lieutenant,  who  bore  their  name.     A  word 

15  of  kindness  or  acknowledgment,  or  a  single  glance  of  approba- 
tion, might  have  changed  Esmond's  opinion  of  the  great  man ; 
and  instead  of  a  satire,  which  his  pen  cannot  help  writing, 
who  knows  but  that  the  humble  historian  might  have  taken 
the  other  side  of  panegyrick?     We  have  but  to  change  the 

20  point  of  view,  and  the  greatest  action  looks  mean ;  as  we 
turn  the  perspective-glass,  and  a  giant  appears  a  pigmy. 
You  may  describe,  but  who  can  tell  whether  j^our  sight  is 
clear  or  not,  or  your  means  of  information  accurate?  Had 
the  great  man  said  but  a  word  of  kindness  to  the  small  one  (as 

25  he  would  have  stepped  out  of  his  gilt  chariot  to  shake  hands 
with  Lazarus°  in  rags  and  sores,  if  he  thought  Lazarus  could 
have  been  of  any  service  to  him),  no  doubt  Esmond  would 
have  fought  for  him  with  pen  and  sword  to  the  utmost  of  his 
might;   but  my  lord  the  lion  did  not  want  master  mouse  at 

30  this  moment,  and  so  Muscipulus°  went  off  and  nibbled  in 
opposition. 

So  it  was,  however,  that  a  young  gentleman,  who,  in  the 
eyes  of  his  famil}^,  and  in  his  own,  doubtless,  was  looked  upon 
as  a  consummate  hero,  found  that  the  great  hero  of  the  day 

35  took  no  more  notice  of  him  than  of  the  smallest  drummer  in 
his  Grace's  army.  The  dowager  at  Chelsea  was  furious 
against  this  negkn't  of  her  family,  and  had  a  great  battle  with 
Lady  Marll)orough  (as  Lady  Castlcwood  insisted  on  calling 
the  Duchess).     Her  Grace  was  now  Mistress  of  the  Robes  to 


HENRY   ESMOND  253 

her  Majesty,  and  one  of  the  greatest  personages  in  this  king- 
dom, as  her  husband  was  in  all  Europe,  and  the  battle  between 
the  two  ladies  took  place  in  the  Queen's  drawing-room. 

The   Duchess  in  reply  to  my  aunt's   eager  clamour,  said 
haughtily,   that  she  had  done  her  best  for  the  legitimate  5 
branch  of  the  Esmonds,  and  could  not  be  expected  to  provide 
for  the  bastard  brats  of  the  family. 

"Bastards,"  says  the  Mscountess,  in  a  fury,  "there  are 
bastards  amongst  the  Churchills,  as  your  Grace  knows,  and 
the  Duke  of  Berwick  is  provided  for  well  enough."  10 

"Madam,"  says  the  Duchess,  "you  know  whose  fault  it  is 
that  there  are  no  such  dukes  in  the  Esmond  famil}^  too,  and 
how  that  little  scheme  of  a  certain  lady  miscarried." 

Esmond's  friend,  Dick  Steele,  who  was  in  waiting  on  the 
Prince,  heard  the  controversy  between  the  ladies  at  Court.  15 
"And  faith,"  says  Dick,  "I  think,  Harry,  thy  kinswoman  had 
the  worst  of  it." 

He  could  not  keep  the  story  quiet;    'twas  all  over  the 
coffee-houses  ere  night;    it  was  printed  in  a  News  Letter° 
before  a  month  was  over,  and  "The  reply  of  her  Grace  the  20 
Duchess  of  M-rlb-r-gh  to  a  Popish  Lad}^  of  the  Court  once  a 

favourite  of  the  late  K J-m-s"  was  printed  in  half  a 

dozen  places,  with  a  note  stating  that  "this  duchess,  when 
the  head  of  this  lady's  family  came  by  his  death  lately  in  a 
fatal  duel,  never  rested  until  she  got  a  pension  for  the  orphan  25 
heir,  and  widow,  from  her  ^lajesty's  bounty."  The  squabble 
did  not  advance  poor  Esmond's  promotion  much,  and  indeed 
made  him  so  ashamed  of  himself  that  he  dared  not  show  hi? 
face  at  the  Commander-in-Chief's  levees  again. 

During  those  eighteen  months  which  had  passed  since  30 
Esmond  saw  his  dear  mistress,  her  good  father,  the  old  Dean, 
quitted  this  hfe,  firm  in  his  principles^  to  the  very  last,  and 
enjoining  his  family  always  to  remember  that  the  Queen's 
brother.  King  James  the  Third,  was  their  rightful  so^^reign. 
He  made  a  very  edifying  end,  as  his  daughter  told  Esmond,  35 
and,  not  a  httle  to  her  surprise,  after  his  death  (for  he  had 
lived  always  very  poorly)  my  lady  found  that  her  father  had 
left  no  less  a  sum  than  £3000  behind  him,  which  he  be- 
queathed to  her. 


254  HENRY   ESMOND 

With  this  httle  fortune   Lady  Castlewood  was  enabled, 

when  her  daughter's  turn  at  Court  came,  to  come  to  London, 

w^here  she  took  a  small  genteel  house  at  Kensington  in  the 

neighbourhood  of  the  Court,  bringing  her  children  with  her, 

5  and  here  it  was  that  Esmond  found  his  friends. 

As  for  the  young  lord,  his  university  career  had  ended 
rather  abruptly.  Honest  Tusher,  his  governor, °  had  found 
my  young  gentleman  ciuite  ungovernable.  JMy  lord  worried 
his  life  away  with  tricks ;   and  broke  out,  as  home-bred  lads 

10  will,  into  a  hundred  youthful  extravagances,  so  that  Dr. 
Bentley,°  the  new  master  of  Trinity,  thought  fit  to  write  to  the 
Viscountess  Castlewood,  my  lord's  mother,  and  beg  her  to 
remove  the  young  nobleman  from  a  college  where  he  declined 
to  learn,  and  where  he  only  did  harm  by  his  riotous  example. 

15  Indeed,  I  believe  he  nearly  set  fire  to  Nevil's  Court,  that 
beautiful  new  quadrangle  of  our  college,  which  Sir  Chris- 
topher Wren  had  lately  built. °  He  knocked  down  a  proctor's 
man  that  wanted  to  arrest  him  in  a  midnight  prank ;  he  gave 
a  dimier  party  on  the  Prince  of  Wales's  birthday,  which  was 

20  within  a  fortnight  of  his  own,  and  the  twenty  young  gentlemen 
then  present  sallied  out  after  their  wine,  having  toasted  King 
James's  health  with  open  windows,  and  sung  cavalier  songs, 
and  shouted  "God  save  the  King!"  in  the  great  court,  so 
that  the  master  came  out  of  his  lodge  at  midnight,  and  dis- 

25  sipated  the  riotous  assembly. 

This  was  my  lord's  crowning  freak,  and  the  Rev.  Thomas 
Tusher,  domestick  chaplain  to  the  Right  Honourable  the 
Lord  Viscount  Castlewood,  finding  his  prayers  and  sermons  of 
no  earthly  avail  to  his  lordship   gave  up  his  duties  of  governor ; 

30  went  and  married  his  brewer's  widow  at  Southampton,  and 
took  her  and  her  money  to  his  parsonage-house  at  Castle- 
wood. 

•    My  lady  could  not  be  angry  with  her  son  for  drinking  King 
James's  health,  being  herself  a  loyal  Tory,  as  all  the  Castle- 

35  wood  family  were,  and  acquiesced  with  a  sigh,  knowing, 
perhaps,  that  her  refusal  would  be  of  no  avail  to  the  young 
lord's  desire  for  a  military  life.  She  would  have  liked  him  to 
be  in  Mr.  Esmond's  n^giment,  iioping  that  Harry  might  act 
as  guardian  and  adviser  to  his  wayward  young  kinsman; 


HENRY   ESMOND  255 

but  my  young  lord  would  hear  of  nothing  but  the  Guards,  and 
a  commission  was  got  for  him  in  the  Duke  of  Ormond's  regi- 
ment ;  so  Esmond  found  my  lord  ensign  and  lieutenant  when 
he  returned  from  Germany  after  the  Blenheim  campaign. 

The  effect  produced  by  both  Lady  Castle  wood's  children  5 
when  they  appeared  in  pubhck  was  extraordinary,  and  the 
whole  town  speedily  rang  with  their  fame ;   such  a  beautiful 
couple,  it  was  declared,  never  had  been  seen ;  the  young  maid 
of  honour  was  toasted  at  every  table  and  tavern,  and  as  for 
my  young  lord,  his  good  looks  were  more  admired  than  his  ic 
sister's.  A  hundred  songs  were  written  even  about  the  pair,  and 
as  the  fashion  of  that  day  was,  my  3^oung  lord  was  praised 
in  these  Anacreonticks°  as  warmly  as  Bathyllus.°     You  ma}^ 
be  sure  that  he  accepted  very  complacently  the  town's  opinion 
Z)f  him,  and  acquiesced  w^ith  that  frankness  and  charming  15 
good-humour  he  always  showed  in  the  idea  that  he  was  the 
prettiest  fellow  in  all  London. 

The  old  Dowager  at  Chelsea,  though  she  could  never  be  got 
to  acknowledge  that  Mistress  Beatrix  was  any  beauty  at  all 
(in  which  opinion,  as  it  may  be  imagined,  a  vast  number  of  2a 
the  ladies  agreed  with  her),  yet,  on  the  very  first  sight  of 
young  Castlewoocl,  she  owned  she  fell  in  love  with  him;  and 
Henry  Esmond,  on  his  return  to  Chelsea,  found  himself  quite 
superseded  in  her  favour  by  her  younger  kinsman.  The  feat 
of  drinking  the  King's  health  at  Cambridge  would  have  won  25 
her  heart,  she  said,  if  nothing  else  did.  "How  had  the  dear 
young  fellow  got  such  beauty?"  she  asked.  "Not  from  his 
father  —  certainly  not  from  his  mother.  How  had  he  come 
by  such  noble  manners,  and  the  perfect  hel  air  ?  That  coun- 
trified Walcote  widow  could  never  have  taught  him.''  Esmond  3a 
had  his  own  opinion  about  the  countrified  Walcote  widow, 
who  had  a  quiet  grace,  and  serene  kindness,  that  had  always 
seemed  to  him  the  perfection  of  good  breeding,  though  he 
did  not  try  to  argue  this  point  with  his  aunt.  But  he  could 
agree  in  most  of  the  praises  which  the  enraptured  old  dowager  35 
bestowed  on  my  Lord  Viscount,  than  whom  he  ne^'er  beheld 
a  more  fascinating  and  charming  gentleman.  Castlewoocl 
had  not  wit  so  much  as  enjoyment.  "The  lad  looks  good 
things,"  Mr.  Steele  used  to  say;   "and  his  laugh  lights  up  a 


256  HENRY   ESMOND 

conversation  as  much  as  ten  repartees  from  Mr.  Congreve. 
I  would  as  soon  sit  over  a  bottle  with  him  as  with  Mr.  Ad- 
dison; and  rather  listen  to  his  talk  than  hear  Nicolini.° 
Was  ever  man  so  gracefully  drunk  as  my  Lord  Castlewood  ? 
5  I  would  give  anything  to  carry  my  wine"  (though,  indeed, 
Dick  bore  his  very  kindly,  and  plenty  of  it,  too)  ''like  this 
mcomparable  young  man.  When  he  is  sober  he  is  delightful ; 
and  when  tipsy,  perfectly  irresistible."  And  referring  to  his 
favourite,  Shakspeare  (who  was    quite  out  of  fasliion°  until 

-c  Steele  brought  him  back  into  the  mode),  Dick  compared  Lord 
Castlewood  to  Prince  Hal,  and  was  pleased  to  dub  Esmond 
as  Ancient  Pistol.  ° 

The  Mistress  of  the  Robes,  the  greatest  lady  in  England 
after  the  Queen,  or  even  before  her  Majesty,  as  the  world  said, 

15  though  she  could  never  be  got  to  say  a  civil  word  to  Beatrix, 
whom  she  had  promoted  to  her  place  of  maid  of  honour,  took 
her  brother  into  instant  favour.  When  3^oung  Castlewood, 
in  his  new  uniform,  and  looking  like  a  prince  out  of  a  fairy 
tale,  went  to  pay  his  duty  to  her  Grace,  she  looked  at  him  for 

20  a  minute  in  silence,  the  young  man  blushing  and  in  confusion 
before  her,  then  fairly  burst  out  a- crying,  and  kissed  him 
before  her  daughters  and  company.  ''He  was  my  boy's 
friend,"  she  said,  through  her  sobs.  "My  P)landford  might 
have  been  like  him."     And  everybody  saw,  after  this  mark 

25  of  the  Duchess's  favour,  that  my  young  lord's  promotion  was 
secure,  and  people  crowded  round  the  favourite's  favourite, 
who  became  vainer  and  gayer,  and  more  good-humoured  than 
ever. 

Meanwhile  Madam  Beatrix  was  making  her  conquests  on 

30  her  own  side,  and  amongst  them  was  one  poor  gentleman,  who 
had  been  shot  by  her  young  eyes  two  years  before,  and  had 
never  been  quite  cured  of  that  wound ;  he  knew,  to  be  sure, 
how  hopeless  any  passion  might  be,  directed  in  that  quarter, 
and  had  taken  that  best,  though  ignoble,  remfdiufii  amoris° 

35  a  s[)eedy  retreat  from  before  the  charmer,  and  a  long  absence 
from  her;  and  not  being  dangerously  smitten  in  the  first 
instance,  Esmond  pretty  soon  got  the  better  of  his  complaint, 
and  if  Ik;  had  it  still,  did  not  know  he  had  it,  and  bore  it 
easily.     But  when  he  returned  after  J^lenheiin,  the  young 


HENRY   ESMOND  257 

lady  of  sixteen,  who  had  appeared  the  most  beautiful  object 
his  eyes  had  ever  looked  on  two  years  back,  was  now  ad- 
vanced to  a  perfect  ripeness  and  perfection  of  beauty  such  as 
instantly  enthralled  the  poor  devil,  who  had  already  been  a 
fugitive  from  her  charms.  Then  he  had  seen  her  but  for  two  5 
days,  and  fled ;  now  he  beheld  her  day  after  day,  and  when 
slie  was  at  Court,  watched  after  her;  when  she  was  at  home, 
made  one  of  the  family  party;  when  she  went  abroad,  rode 
after  her  mother's  chariot;  when  she  appeared  in  publick 
places,  was  in  the  box  near  her,  or  in  the  pit  looking  at  her ;  10 
when  she  went  to  church,  was  sure  to  be  there,  though  he 
might  not  hsten  to  the  sermon,  and  be  ready  to  hand  her  to 
her  chair  if  she  deigned  to  accept  of  his  services,  and  select 
him  from  a  score  of  young  men  who  were  always  hanging 
round  about  her.  When  she  went  away,  accompanying  her  15 
Majesty  to  Hampton  Court,  a  darkness  fell  over  London. 
Gods,  what  nights  has  Esmond  passed,  thinking  of  her, 
rhyming  about  her,  talking  about  her  !  His  friend  Dick  Steele 
was  at  this  time  courting  the  young  lady,  Mrs.  Scurlock, 
he  married ;  she  had  a  lodging  in  Kensington  Scjuare,  hard  20 
by  my  Lady  Castlewood's  house  there.  Dick  and  Harry  being 
on  the  same  errand  used  to  meet  constantly  at  Kensington. 
They  were  always  pro wKng  about  that  place,  or  dismally  walk- 
ing thence,  or  eagerly  running  thither.  They  emptiecl  scores 
of  bottles  at  the  King's  Arms,  each  man  prating  of  his  love,  25 
and  allowing  the  other  to  talk  on  condition  that  he  might 
have  his  own  turn  as  a  listener.  Hence  arose  an  intimacy 
between  them,  though  to  all  the  rest  of  their  friends  they 
must  have  been  insufferable.  Esm.ond's  verses  to  ''Gloriana 
at  the  Harpsichord,"  to  "Gloriana's  Nosegay,"  to  '  Gloriana  30 
at  Court,"  appeared  this  year  in  the  Observator° — Have 
3^ou  never  read  them?  They  were  thought  pretty  poems, 
and  attributed  by  some  to  Mr.  Prior. ° 

This  passion  did  not  escape  —  how  should  it  ?  —  the  clear 
eyes  of  Esmond's  mistress :  he  told  her  all ;  what  7.'*  11  a  man  35 
not  do  when  frantick  with  love?  To  what  baseness  will  he 
not  demean°  himself  ?  What  pangs  will  he  not  make  others 
suffer,  so  that  he  may  ease  his  selfish  heart  of  a  part  of  its 
own  pain  ?     Day  after  day  he  would  seek  his  dear  mistress, 


258  HENRY  ESMOND 

pour  insane  hopes,  supplications,  rhapsodies,  raptures,  into  hei 
ear.  She  Hstened,  smiled,  consoled,  with  untiring  pity  and  sweet- 
ness. Esmond  was  the  eldest  of  her  children,  so  she  was 
pleased  to  say;  and  as  for  her  kindness,  who  ever  had  or 
5  would  look  for  aught  else  from  one  who  was  an  angel  of 
goodness  and  pity?  After  what  has  been  said,  'tis  needless 
almost  to  add  that  poor  Esmond's  suit  was  unsuccessful. 
What  was  a  nameVss,  penniless  lieutenant  to  do,  when  some 
of  the  greatest  in  the  land  were  in  the  field  ?     Esmond  never 

10  so  much  as  thought  of  asking  permission  to  hope  so  far  above 
his  reach  as  he  knew  this  prize  was  —  and  passed  his  foolish, 
useless  life  in  mere  abject  sighs  and  impotent  longing.  What 
nights  of  rage,  what  days  of  torment,  of  passionate  unfulfilled 
desire,  of  sickening  jealousy,  can  he  recall !     Beatrix  thought 

15  no  more  of  him  than  of  the  lacquey  that  followed  her  chair. 
His  complaints  did  not  touch  her  in  the  least ;  his  raptures 
rather  fatigued  her;  she  cared  for  his  verses  no  more  than 
for  Dan  Chaucer 's,°  who's  dead  these  ever  so  many  hundred 
years;    she  did  not  hate  him;   she  rather  despised  him,  and 

20  just  suffered  him. 

One  day,  after  talking  to  Beatrix's  mother,  his  dear,  fond, 
constant  mistress  —  for  hours  —  for  all  day  along  —  pouring 
out  his  flame  and  his  passion,  his  despair  and  rage,  returning 
again  and  again  to  the  theme,  pacing  the  room,  tearing  up 

25  the  flowers  on  the  table,  twisting  and  breaking  into  bits  the 
wax  out  of  the  stand-dish,  and  performing  a  hundred  mad 
freaks  of  passionate  folly ;  seeing  his  mistress  at  last  quite 
pale  and  tired  out  with  sheer  weariness  of  compassion,  and 
watching  over  his   fever  for  the  hundredth  time,   Esmond 

30  seized  up  his  hat,  and  took  his  leave.  As  ho  got  into  Kensing- 
ton Square,  a  sense  of  remorse  came  over  him  for  the  weari- 
some pain  he  had  been  inflicting  upon  the  dearest  and  kindest 
friend  ever  man  had.  Ho  went  back  to  the  house,  where 
the  servant  still  stood  at  the  open  door,  ran  up  the  stairs, 

35  and  found  his  mistress  whore  he  had  left  her  in  the  embrasure 
of  the  window,  looking  over  the  fields  towards  Chelsea. ° 
She  laughed,  wiping  away  at  the  same  time  the  tears  which 
were  in  her  kind  eyes;  he  flung  himself  down  on  his  knees, 
.'uul  buried  his  head  in  her  lap.     She  had  in  her  hand  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  259 

stalk  of  one  of  the  flowers,  a  pink,  that  he  had  torn  to  pieces. 
''Oh,  pardon  me,  pardon  me,  my  dearest  and  kindest, ''  he 
said;  ''I  am  in  hell,  and  you  are  the  angel  that  brings  me 
a  drop  of  water/' 

''I  am  your  mother,  you  are  my  son,  and  I   love   you  ^ 
always,''  she  said,  folding  her  hands  over  him;   and  he  went 
away  comforted  and  humbled  in  mind  as  he  thought  of  that 
amazing  and  constant  love  and  tenderness  with  which  this 
sweet  lady  ever  blessed  and  pursued  him. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE   FAMOUS   MR.    JOSEPH   ADDISON 

The  gentlemen  ushers°  had  a  table  at  Kensington,  and  the  lo 
guard  a  very  splendid  dinner  daily  at  St.  James's, °  at  either 
of  which  ordinaries  Esmond  was  free  to  dine.     Dick  Steele 
liked  the  guard-table  better  than  his  own  at  the  gentlemen 
ushers',  where  there  was  less  wine  and  more  ceremony;   and 
Esmond   had   many   a  jolly   afternoon   in   company  of  his  15 
friend,  and  a  hundred  times  at  least  saw  Dick  into  his  chair 
If  there  is  verity  in  wine,  according  to  the  old  adage,  what 
an  amiable-natured  character  Dick's  must  have  been !     In 
proportion  as  he  took  in  wine  he  overflowed  with  kindness. 
His  talk  was  not  witty  so  much  as  charming.     He  never  20 
said  a  word  that  could  anger  anybody,   and  only  became 
the  more  benevolent  the  more  tipsy  he  grew.     Many  of  the 
wags  derided  the  poor  fellow  in  his  cups,   and  chose  him 
as  a  butt  for  their  satire :    but  there  was  a  kindness  about 
him,  and  a  sweet  playful  fancy,   that  seemed  to  Esmond  25 
far  more  charming  than  the  pointed  talk  of  the  brightest 
wits,  with  their  elaborate  repartees  and  affected  severities. 
I  think  Steele  shone  rather  than  sparkled.     Those  famous 
bcaux-espn'ts°  of  the   coffee-houses    (Mr.  William  Congreve, 
for  instance,  when  his  gout  and  his  grandeur  permitted  him  3^ 
to   come   among  us)    would    make    many   brilliant    hits  — 
half  a  dozen  in  a  night  sometimes  —  but,  like  sharp-shooters, 
when  they  had  fired  their  shot,  they  were  obliged  to  retire 


260  HENRY   ESMOND 

under  cover,  till  their  pieces  were  loaded  again,  and  wait 
till  they  got  another  chance  at  their  enemy;  whereas  Dick 
never  thought  that  his  bottle-companion  was  a  butt  to  aim 
at  —  only  a  friend  to  shake  by  the  hand.     The  poor  fellow 

5  had  half  the  town  in  his  confidence ;  everybody  knew  every- 
thing about  his  loves  and  his  debts,  his  creditors  or  his 
mistress's  obduracy.  When  Esmond  first  came  on  to  the 
town  honest  Dick  was  all  flames  and  raptures  for  a  young 
lady,  a  West  India  fortune,  whom  he  married.     In  a  couple 

10  of  years  the  lady  was  dead,  the  fortune  was  all  but  spent, 
and  the  honest  widower  was  as  eager  in  pursuit  of  a  new 
paragon  of  beauty  as  if  he  had  never  courted  and  married 
and  bui'ied  tae  last  one. 

Quitting  the  guard-table  on  one  sunny  afternoon,  when  by 

15  chance  Dick  had  a  sober  fit  upon  him,  he  and  his  friend 
were  making  their  way  down  Germain  Street, °  and  Dick  all 
of  a  sudden  left  his  companion's  arm,  and  ran  after  a  gentle- 
man, who  was  poring  over  a  folio  volume  at  the  bookshop 
near  to  St.  James's  Church. °     He  was  a  fair,  tall  man,  in  a 

20  snuff-coloured  suit,  with  a  plain  sword,  very  sober  and  almost 
shabby  in  appearance,  —  at  least,  when  compared  to  Captain 
Steele,  who  loved  to  adorn  his  jolly  round  person  with  the 
finest  of  clothes,  and  shone  in  scarlet  and  gold  lace.  The 
Captain  rushed  up,  then,  to  the  student  of  the  book-stall, 

25  took  him  in  his  arms,  hugged  him,  and  would  have  kissed 
him,  —  for  Dick  was  always  hugging  and  bussing  his  friends, 
—  but  the  other  stepped  back  with  a  flush  on  his  pale  face, 
seeming  to  decline  this  publick  manifestation  of  Steele's 
regard. 

30  "  My  dearest  Joe,  where  hast  thou  hidden  thyself  this  age  ?  " 
cries  the  Captain,  still  holding  both  his  friend's  hands;  "I 
have  been  languishing  for  thee  this  fortnight." 

"A  fortnight  is  not  an  ago,   Dick,"  says  the  other,  very 
good-humouredly.     (He  had  light  blue  eyes,  extraordinary 

35  bright,  and  a  face  perfectly  regular  and  handsome,  like  a 
tinted  statue.)  "And  I  have  been  hiding  myself,  —  where 
do  you  think?" 

"  What !   not  across  the  water,  my  dear  Joe  ?"  says  Steele, 
with  a  look  of  great  alarm  :  "  thou  knowest  I  have  always " 


HENRY   ESMOND  261 

"No,"  says  his  friend,  interrupting  him  with  a  smile  :  'Sve 
are  not  come  to  such  straits  as  that,  Dick.  I  have  been 
hiding,  sir,  at  a  place  where  people  never  think  of  finding 
you,  —  at  my  own  lodgings,  whither  I  am  going  to  smoke  a 
pipe  now  and  drink  a  glass  of  sack;  will  your  honour  come?''  5 

"Harry  Esmond,  come  hither,''  cries  out  Dick.  "Thou 
hast  heard  me  talk  over  and  over  again  at  my  dearest  Joe, 
my  guardian-angel." 

"Indeed,"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  with  a  bow,  "it  is  not  from 
you  only  that  I  have  learnt  to  admire  Mr.  Addison.  We  ic 
loved  good  poetry  at  Cambridge,  as  well  as  at  Oxford ;  and 
I  have  some  of  yours  by  heart,  though  I  have  put  on  a  red 
coat.  .  .  .  'O,  qui  canoro  blandius  Orpheo  vocale  ducis 
carmen°;'  shall  I  go  on,  sir?"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  who,  indeed, 
had  read  and  loved  the  charming  Latin  poems  of  Mr.  Addison,  15 
as  every  scholar  of  that  time  knew  and  admired  them. 

"This  is  Captain  Esmond,  who  was  at  Blenheim,"  says 
Steele. 

"Lieutenant  Esmond,"  says  the  other,  with  a  low  bow; 
"at  Mr.  Addison's  service."  -  20 

"T  have  heard  of  you,"  says  Mr.  Addison,  with  a  smile; 
as,  indeed,  everj^body  about  town  had  heard  that  unlucky 
story  about  Esmond's  dowager  aunt  and  the  Duchess. 

"We  were  going  to  the  George,  to  take  a  bottle  before 
the  play,"  says  Steele;    "wilt  thou  be  one,  Joe?"  25 

Mr.  Addison  said  his  own  lodgings  were  hard  by,  where  he 
was  still  rich  enough  to  give  a  good  bottle  of  wine  to  his 
friends;  and  invited  the  two  gentlemen  to  his  apartment  in 
the  Haymarket,  whither  we  accordingly  went. 

"I  shall  get  credit  with  my  landlady,"  say?  he,  with  a  30 
smile,  "when  she  sees  two  such  fine  gentlemen  as  3'ou  come 
up  my  stair."  And  he  pohtely  made  his  visitors  welcome 
to  his  apartment,  which  was  indeed  but  a  shabby  one,  though 
no  grandee  of  the  land  could  receive  his  guests  with  a  more 
perfect  and  courtly  grace  than  this  gentleman.  A  frugal  35 
dinner,  consisting  of  a  slice  of  meat  and  a  penny  loaf,  was 
awaiting  the  owner  of  the  lodgings.  "My  wine  is  better 
than  my  meat,"  says  Mr.  Addison;  "my  Lord  Halifax^ 
sent  me  the  Burgundy."     And  he  set  a  bottle  and  glasses 


262  •  HENRY  ESMOND 

before  his  friends,  and  ate  his  simple  dinner  in  a  ver}^  fe^ 
minutes;  after  which  the  three  feU  to,  and  began  to  drink. 
*'You  see,"  says  Mr.  Addison,  pointing  to  his  writing-table, 
whereon  was  a  map  of  the  action  at  Hochstedt,°  and  several 

5  other  gazettes  and  pamphlets  relating  to  the  battle,  'that 
I,  too,  am  busy  about  your  affairs,  captain.  I  am  engaged 
as  a  poetical  gazetteer,  to  say  truth,  and  am  writing  a  poem 
on  the   campaign.'' 

So  Esmond,  at  the  request  of  his  host,  told  him  what  he 

10  knew  about  the  famous  battle,  drew  the  river  on  the  table 
aliquo  mero,^  and  with  the  aid  of  some  bits  of  tobacco-pipe, 
showed  the  advance  of  the  left  wing,  where  he  had  been 
engaged. 

A  sheet  or  two  of  the  verses  lay  already  on  the  table  beside 

15  our  bottles  and  glasses,  and  Dick  having  plentifully  refreshed 
himself  from  the  latter,  took  up  the  pages  of  manuscript, 
writ  out  with  scarce  a  blot  or  correction,  in  the  author's 
slim,  neat  handwriting,  and  began  to  read  therefrom  with 
great  emphasis  and  volubihty.     At  pauses  of  the  verse °  the 

20  enthusiastick  reader  stopped  and  fired  off  a  great  salvo  of 
applause. 

Esmond  smiled  at  the  enthusiasm  of  Addison's  friend. 
''You  are  like  the  German  Burghers,"  says  he,  ''and  the 
Princes  on  the  Mozelle;    when  our  army  came  to  a  halt, 

25  they   always   sent   a   deputation   to   compliment   the   chief, 

and  fired  a  salute  with  all  their  artillery  from  their  walls." 

"And  drunk  the  great  chief's  health  afterward,  did  not 

they?"  says  Captain  Steele,  gaily  fiUing  up  a  bumper;  — 

he  never  was  tardy  at  that  sort  of  acknowledgment  of  a 

30  friend's    merit. 

"And  the  Duke,  since  you  will  have  me  act  his  Grace's 
part,"  says  I\Ir.  Addison,  with  a  smile  and  something  of  a 
blush,  "pledged  his  friends  in  return.  Most  Serene  Elector 
of   Covent    Garden, °   I    drink  to   your   Highness's  health," 

35  and  he  filled  himself  a  glass.  Josej^h  required  scarce  more 
pressing  than  Dick  to  that  sort  of  amusement;  but  the  wine 
never  seemed  at  all  to  fluster  Mr.  Addison's  brains;  it  only 
unloosed  his  tongue,  whereas  Ca})tain  Steele's  head  and 
speech  were  quite  overcome  by  a  single  bottle. 


HENRY   ESMOND  263 

Xo  matter  what  the  verses  were,  and,  to  say  truth,  Mr. 
Esmond  found  some  of  them  more  than  indifferent,  Dick's 
enthusiasm  for  his  chief  never  faltered,  and  in  every  hne 
from  Addison's  pen,  Steele  found  a  master-stroke.  By 
the  time  Dick  had  come  to  that  part  of  the  poem,  wherein  5 
the  bard  describes,  as  blandly  as  though  he  were  recording 
a  dance  at  the  opera,  or  a  harmless  bout  of  bucolick  cudgelling 
at  a  village  fair,  that  bloody  and  ruthless  part  of  our  cam- 
paign, with  the  remembrance  whereof  every  soldier  who 
bore  a  part  in  it  must  sicken  with  shame,  —  when  we  were  10 
ordered  to  ravage  and  lay  waste  the  Elector's  country; 
and  with  fire  and  murder,  slaughter  and  crime,  a  great  part 
of  his  dominions  was  overrun ;  —  when  Dick  came  to  the 
hnes : 

"  In  vengeance  roused  the  soldier  fills  his  hand  15 

With  sword  and  fire,  and  ravages  the  land. 
In  crackling  flames  a  thousand  harvests  burn, 
A  thovisand  villages  to  ashes  turn. 
To  the  thick  woods  the  woolly  flocks  retreat, 
And  mixed  with  bellowing  herds  confusedly  bleat,  80 

Their  trembling  lords  the  common  shade  partake. 
And  cries  of  infants  sound  in  every  brake. 
The  listening  soldier  fixed  in  sorrow  stands, 
Loth  to  obey  his  leader's  just  commands. 

The  leader  grieves,  by  generous  pity  swayed,  25 

To  see  his  just  commands  so  well  obeyed  :  " 

by  this  time  wine  and  friendship  had  brought  poor  Dick  to  a 
perfectly  maudlin  state,  and  he  hiccupped  out  the  last  Hne 
with  a  tenderness  that  set  one  of  his  auditors  a-laughing. 

"I  admire  the  licence  of  you  poets,"  says  Esmond  to  Mr.  3° 
Addison.  (Dick,  after  reading  of  the  verses,  was  fain  to  go 
off,  insisting  on  kissing  his  two  dear  friends  before  his  depart- 
ure, and  reeling  away  with  his  perriwig  over  his  eyes.)  "  I 
admire  your  art :  the  murder  of  the  campaign  is  done  to 
military  musick,  like  a  battle  at  the  opera,  and  the  virgins  35 
shriek  in  harmony,  as  our  victorious  grenadiers  march  into 
their  villages.  Do  you  know  what  a  sceae  it  was?"  (By 
this  time,  perhaps,  the  wine  had  warmed  ^Ir.  Esmond's 
head  too)  —  "what  a  triumph  you  are  celebrating?  what 
scenes  of  shame  and  horror °  were  enacted,  over  which  the  4c 


264  HENRY  ESMOND, 

commander's  genius  presided,  as  calm  as  though  he  didn'i 
belong  to  our  sphere?  You  talk  of  the  'hstening  soldier 
fixed  in  sorrow/  the  header's  grief  swayed  by  generous 
pity;'  to  my  belief  the  leader  cared  no  more  for  bleating 
5  flocks  than  he  did  for  infants'  cries,  and  many  of  our  ruffians 
butchered  one  or  the  other  with  equal  alacrity.  I  was 
ashamed  of  my  trade  when  I  saw  those  horrors  perpetrated, 
which  came  under  every  man's  eyes.  You  hew  out  of  your 
polished  verses  a  stately  image  of  smiling  victory;    I  tell 

'o  you  'tis  an  uncouth,  distorted,  savage  idol ;  hideous,  bloody, 
and  barbarous.  The  rites  performed  before  it  are  shocking 
to  think  of.  You  great  poets  should  show  it  as  it  is  —  ugly 
and  horrible,  not  beautiful  and  serene.  Oh,  sir,  had  you 
made  the   campaign,    believe  me,   you  never  would    have 

15  sung  it  so." 

During  this  little  outbreak,  Mr.  Addison  was  listening, 
smoking  out  of  his  long  pipe,  and  smiling  very  placidly. 
"What  would  you  have?"  says  he.  "In  our  polished  days, 
and  according  to  the  rules  of  art,   'tis  impossible  that  the 

20  Muse  should  depict  tortures  or  begrime  her  hands  with  the 
horrors  of  war.  These  are  indicated  rather  than  described: 
as  in  the  Greek  tragedies,  that,  I  dare  say,  you  have  read 
(and  sure  there  can  be  no  more  elegant  specimens  of  com- 
position) ;    Agamemnon°  is  slain,  or    Medea's  children    de- 

25  stroyed,  away  from  the  scene ;  —  the  chorus  occupying  the 
stage  and  singing  of  the  action  to  pathetick  musick.  Some- 
thing of  this  I  attempt,  my  dear  sir,  in  my  humble  way: 
'tis  a  pancgyrick  I  mean  to  write,  and  not  a  satire.  Were 
I  to  sing  as  you  would  have  me,  the  town  would  tear  the  poet 

30  in  pieces,  and  burn  his  book  by  the  hands  of  the  common 
hangman.  Do  you  not  use  tobacco?  Of  all  the  weeds 
grown  on  earth,  sure  the  nicotian  is  the  most  soothing  and 
salutary.  We  must  paint  our  great  Duke,"  Mr.  Addison 
went  on,  "not  as  a  man,  which  no  doubt  he  is,  with  weak- 

35  nesses  like  the  rest  of  us,  but  as  a  hero.  'Tis  in  a  triumph, 
not  a  l)attle,  that  your  humble  servant  is  riding  his  sleek 
Pegasus. °  We  college-poets  trot,  you  know,  on  very  easy 
nags;  it  hath  b(;en,  time  out  of  mind,  part  of  the  poet's 
profession  to  celebrate  the  actions  of  heroes  in  verse,  and 


HENRY  ESMOND  2^^ 

to  sing  the  deeds  which  you  men  of  war  perform.  I  must 
follow  the  rules  of  my  art,  and  the  composition  of  such 
a  strain  as  this  must  be  harmonious  and  majestick,  not 
familiar,  or  too  near  the  \iilgar  truth.  Si  parva  licet° :  if 
Virgil  could  invoke  the  divine  Augustus,  a  humbler  poet  from  5 
the  banks  of  the  Isis°  may  celebrate  a  victory  and  a  conqueror 
of  our  own  nation,  in  whose  triumphs  every  Briton  has  a 
share,  and  whose  glory  and  genius  contributes  to  every 
citizen's  individual  honour.  When  hath  there  been,  smce 
our  Henrys'  and  Edwards'  days,°  such  a  great  feat  of  arms  10 
as  that  from  which  you  yourself  have  brought  away  marks 
of  distinction  ?  If  'tis  in  my  power  to  sing  that  song  worth- 
ily, I  will  do  so,  and  be  thankful  to  my  Muse.  If  I  fail  as 
a  poet,  as  a  Briton  at  least  I  will  show  my  loyalty,  and  fling 
up  my  cap  and  huzzah  for  the  conqueror :  15 

Rheni  pacator  et  Istri, 


Oranis  in  hoc  iino  variis  discordia  cessit 
Ordinibvis  ;  liaetatur  eques,  plauditque  senator, 
Votaque  patricio  certant  plebeia  favori.'  "° 

"There  were  as  brave  men  on  that  field,"  says  Mr.  Esmond  20 
(who  never  could  be  made  to  love  the  Duke  of  Marlborough, 
nor  to  forget  those  stories  which  he  used  to  hear  in  his  youth 
regarding  that  great  chief's  selfishness  and  treacher}^),  "there 
were  men  at  Blenheim  as  good  as  the  leader,  whom  neither 
knights  nor  senators  applauded,  nor  voices  plebeian  or  patri-  25 
cian  favoured,  and  who  lie  there  forgotten,  under  the  clods. 
What  poet  is  there  to  sing  them?" 

"To  sing  the  gallant  souls  of  heroes  sent  to  Hades!"  says 
Mr.  Addison,  with  a  smile:  "would  j'ou  celebrate  them  all? 
If  I  may  venture  to  question  anything  in  such  an  admirable  3a 
work,  the  catalogue  of  the  ships  in  Homer°  hath  always  ap- 
peared to  me  as  somewhat  wearisome ;  what  had  the  poem 
been,  supposing  the  writer  had  chronicled  the  names  of 
captains,  heutenants,  rank  and  file?  One  of  the  greatest 
of  a  great  man's  qualities  is  success;  'tis  the  result  of  all  35 
the  others;  'tis  a  latent  power  in  him  which  compels  the 
favour  of  the  gods,  and  subjugates  fortune.  Of  all  his  gifts  I 
admire  that  one  in  the  great  Marlborough.      To  be  brave? 


266  HENRY   ESMOND 

every  mt^ii  is  brave.  But  in  being  victorious,  as  he  is,  I  fanc> 
there  is  something  divine.  In  presence  of  the  occasion,  the 
great  soul  of  the  leader  shines  out,  and  the  god  is  confessed. 
Death  itself  respects  him,  and  passes  by  him  to  lay  others  low. 
5  War  and  carnage  flee  before  him  to  ravage  other  parts  of  the 
field,  as  Plector  from  before  the  divine  Achilles.  You  say  he 
hath  no  pity ;  no  more  have  the  gods,  who  are  above  it,  and 
superhuman.  The  fainting  battle  gathers  strength  at  his 
aspect;  and  wherever  he  rides,  victory  charges  with  him." 

lo  A  couple  of  days  after,  when  Mr.  Esmond  revisited  his 
poetick  friend,  he  found  this  thought,  struck  out  in  the  fervour 
of  conversation,  improved  and  shaped  into  those  famous  lines, 
which  are  in  truth  the  noblest  in  the  poem  of  the  "Cam- 
paign."    As  the  two   gentlemen  sat  engaged  in  talk,   Mr. 

15  Addison  solacing  himself  with  his  customary  pipe,  the  little 
maid-servant  that  waited  on  his  lodging  came  up,  preceding 
a  gentleman  in  fine  laced  clothes,  that  had  e\idently  been 
figuring  at  Court  or  a  great  man's  levee.  The  courtier 
coughed  a  little  at  the  smoke  of  the  pipe,  and  looked  round 

20  the  room  curiously,  which  was  shabby  enough,  as  was  the 
owner  in  his  worn  snuff-coloured  suit  and  plain  tie-wig. 

"How  goes  on  the  magnum  opus,°  Mr.  Addison?"  says  the 
Court  gentleman  on  looking  down  at  the  papers  that  were  on 
the  table. 

25  "We  were  but  now  over  it,"  says  Addison  (the  greatest 
courtier  in  the  land  could  not  have  a  more  splendid  politeness, 
or  greater  dignity  of  manner) ;  "here  is  the  plan,"  says  he, 
"on  the  table  :  hac  that  Simois,  here  ran  the  little  river  Nebel, 
hie  est  Sigeia  tellus°  here  are  Tallard's  quarters,  at  the  bowl 

30  of  this  pipe,  at  the  attack  of  which  Captain  Esmond  was 
})resent.  I  have  the  honour  to  introduce  him  to  Mj-.  Boyle°; 
and  Mr.  Esmond  was  but  now  depicting  aliquo  prcclia  mixta 
mero°  when  you  came  in."  In  truth  the  two  gentlemen  had 
been  so  engaged  when  the  visitor  arrived,  and  Ad(Hson  in  his 

35  smiling  way,  speaking  of  Mr.  Webb,  Colonel  of  Esmond's 
regiment  (who  comnuinded  a  brigade  in  the  action,  and  greatly 
distinguished  himself  there),  was  lamenting  that  he  could 
find  never  a  suital)r(>  rhyme  for  Webb,  otherwise  the  brigadier 
should  have  had  a  place  in  the  poet's  verses.     "And  for  you, 


HENRY   ESMOND  267 

you  are  but  a  lieutenant,"  says  Addison,  "and  the  Muse  can't 
orcupy  herself  with  any  gentleman  under  the  rank  of  a  field- 
officer.'' 

Mr.  Boyle  was  all  impatient  to  hear,  saying  that  my  Lord 
Treasurer"  and  my  Lord  Halifax"  were  equally  anxious ;  and  5 
Addison,  blushing,  began  reading  of  his  verses,  and,  I  suspect, 
knew  their  weak  parts  as  well  as  the  most  critical  hearer. 
When  he  came  to  the  lines  describing  the  angel,  that 

"  Inspired  repulsed  battalions  to  engage, 

And  taught  the  doubtful  battle  where  to  rage,"  lo 

he  read  with  great  animation,  looking  at  Esmond,  as  much  as 
to  say,  ''  ^ou  know  where  that  simile  came  from  —  from  our 
talk,  and  our  bottle  of  Burgundy,  the  other  day." 

The  poet's  two  hearers  were  caught  with  enthusiasm,  and 
applauded  the  verses  with  all  their  might.     The  gentleman  of  15 
the  Court  sprang  up  in  great  delight.     "  Not  a  word  more,  my 
dear  sir,"  says  he.     "Trust  me  with  the  papers  —  I'll  defend 
them  with  my  life.     Let  me  read  them  over  to  my  Lord 
Treasurer,  w^hom  I  am  appointed  to  see  in  half  an  hour.     I 
venture   to   promise,  the  verses   shall   lose  nothing   bv  my  20 
reading,  and  then,  sir,  we  shall  see  whether  Lord  Halifax  has  a 
right  to  complain  that  his  friend's  pension  is  no  longer  paid." 
And  without  more  ado,  the  courtier  in  lace  seized  the  manu- 
script pages,  placed  them  in  his  breast  with  his  ruffled  hand 
over  his  heart,  executed  a  most  gracious  wave  of  the  hat  with  25 
the  disengaged  hand,  and  smiled  and  bowed  out  of  the  room, 
leaving  an  odour  of  pomander  behind  him. 

"Does  not  the  chamber  look  quite  dark?"  says  Addison, 
surveying  it,  "  after  the  glorious  appearance  and  disappearance 
of  that  gracious  messenger?  Why,  he  illuminated  the  whole  3° 
room.  Your  scarlet,  Mr.  Esmond,  will  bear  any  light;  but 
this  thread-bare  old  coat  of  mine,  ho  v.  ■  -ry  worn  it  looked 
under  the  glare  of  that  splendour !  wonder  whether  they 
WiW  do  anything  for  me  ?"  he  contiiyaed.  "When  I  came  out 
of  Oxford  into  the  world,  my  patrons  promised  me  great  35 
things ;  and  you  see  where  their  promises  have  landed  me, 
in  a  lodging  up  two  pair  of  stairs,  with  a  sixpenny  dinner  from 
the  cook's  shop.     Well,  I  suppose  this  promise  will  go  after 


268  HENRY   ESMOND 

the  others,  and  fortune  will  jilt  me,  as  the  jade  has  beer, 
doing  any  time  these  seven  years.  'I  puff  the  prostitute 
away, '''  says  he,  smiling,  and  blowing  a  cloud  out  of  his  pipe. 
"There  is  no  hardship  in  poverty,  Esmond,  that  is  not  bear- 
5  able ;  no  hardship  even  in  honest  dependence  that  an  honest 
man  may  not  put  up  with.  I  came  out  of  the  lap  of  Alma 
Mater,°  puffed  up  with  her  praises  of  me,  and  thinking  to 
make  a  figure  in  the  world  with  the  parts  and  learning  which 
had  got  me  no  small  name  in  our  college.     The  world  is  the 

10  ocean,  and  Isis  and  Charwell°  are  but  little  drops,  of  which 
the  sea  takes  no  account.  My  reputation  ended  a  mile 
beyond  Maudlin  Tower° ;  no  one  took  note  of  me ;  and  I 
learned  this,  at  least,  to  bear  up  against  evil  fortune  with  a 
cheerful  heart.     Friend  Dick  hath  made  a  figure  in  the  world, 

15  and  has  passed  me  in  the  race  long  ago.  What  matters  a 
little  name  or  a  little  fortune?  There  is  no  fortune  that 
a- philosopher  cannot  endure.  I  have  been  not  unknown  as 
a  scholar,  and  3^et  forced  to  hve  b}^  turning  bear-leader,  and 
teaching  a  boy  to  spell.     What  then  ?    The  life  was  not  pleas- 

20  ant,  but  possible  —  the  bear  was  bearable.  Should  this 
venture  fail,  I  will  go  back  to  Oxford;  and  some  day,  when 
you  are  a  general,  you  shall  find  me  a  curate  in  a  cassock  and 
bands,  and  I  shall  welcome  your  honour  to  my  cottage  in  the 
country,  and  to  a  mug  of  penny  ale.     Tis  not  poverty  that's 

25  the  hardest  to  bear,  or  the  least  happy  lot  in  life,''  says  Mr. 
Addison,  shaking  the  ash  out  of  his  pipe.  "See,  my  pipe  is 
smoked  out.  Shall  we  have  another  bottle?  I  have  still  a 
couple  in  the  cupboard,  and  of  the  right  sort.  No  more?  — 
let  us  go  abroad  and  take  a  turn  on  thelNIall,  or  look  in  at  the 

30  theatre  and  see  Dick's  comedy.  'Tis  not  a  masterpiece  of  wit ; 
but  Dick  is  a  good  fellow,  though  he  doth  not  set  the  Thames 
on  fire." 

Within  a  month  after  this  day,  Mr.  Addison's  ticket  had 
come  up  a  prodigious  prize  in  the  lottery  of  life.     All  the 

35  town  was  in  an  uproar  of  admiration  of  his  poem,  the   'Cam 
paign,"  whi(;h  Dick  Steele  was  spouting  at  every  coffee-house 
in  Whitehall  and  Covent  Garden. °     The  wits  on  tne  other 
side  of  Temple  Bar°  saluted  him  at  once  as  the  greatest  poet 
the  world  had  seen  for  ages;    the  people  huz^.aed  for  Marl- 


HENRY   ESMOND  269 

borough  and  for  Addison,  and,  more  than  this,  the  party  in 
power  provided  for  the  meritorious  poet,  and  Mr.  Addison 
got  the  appointment  of  Commissioner  of  Excise,  which  the 
famous  Mr.  Locke°  vacated,  and  rose  from  this  place  to  other 
dignities  and  honours;  his  prosperity  from  henceforth  to  the  5 
end  of  his  hfe  being  scarce  ever  interrupted.  But  I  doubt 
whether  he  was  not  happier  in  his  garret  in  the  Haymarket, 
than  ever  he  was  in  his  splendid  palace  at  Kensington°;  and 
1  believe  the  fortune  that  came  to  him  in  the  shape  of  the 
countess  his  wife,  was  no  better  than  a  shrew  and  a  vixen,  ic 

Gay  as  the  town  was,  'twas  but  a  dreary  place  for  Mr.  Es- 
mond, whether  his  charmer  was  in  it  or  out  of  it,  and  he  was 
glad  when  his  general  gave  him  notice  that  he  was  going  back 
to  his  division  of  the  army  which  lay  in  winter-quarters  at 
Bois-le-Duc.     His  dear  mistress  had  bade  him  farewell  with  a  15 
cheerful  face ;  her  blessing  he  knew  he  had  always,  and  where- 
soever fate  carried  him.     Mistress  Beatrix  was  away  in  at- 
tendance on  her  Majesty  at  Hampton  Court,  and  kissed  her 
fair  finger-tips  to  him,  by  way  of  adieu,  when  he  rode  thither 
to  take  his  leave.     She  received  her  kinsman  in  a  waiting-  20 
room,  w^here  there  were  half  a  dozen  more  ladies  of  the  Court, 
so  that  his  high-flown  speeches,  had  he  intended  to  make  any  ' 
(and  very  likely  he  did),  were  impossible ;  and  she  announced 
to  her  friends  that  her  cousin  was  going  to  the  army,  in  as 
easy  a  manner  as  she  would  have  saicl  he  was  going  to  a  25 
chocolate-house.     He  asked  with  a  rather  rueful  face,  if  she 
had  any  orders  for  the  army?     and  she  was  pleased  to  say 
that  she  would  like  a  mantle  of  Mechlin  lace.°    She  made  him 
a  saucy  curtsey  in  reply  to  his  own  dismal  bow.     She  deigned 
to  kiss  her  finger-tips  from  the  window,   where  she  stood  30 
laughing  with  the  other  ladies,  and  chanced  to  see  him  as  he 
made  his  way  to  the  Toy.°     The  dowager  at  Chelsea  was  not 
sorry  to  part  with  him  this  time.     ''  ^lon  cher,  vous  etes  triste 
comme  un  sermon, °''  she  did  him  the  honour  to  say  to  him; 
indeed,  gentlemen  in  this  condition  are  by  no  means  amus-  35 
ing  companions,  and  besides,  the  fickle  old  woman  had  now 
found  a  much  more  amiable  favourite,  and  rafjoUd  for  her 
darUng  lieutenant  of  the  Guard.     Frank  remained  behind  for 


270  HENRY   ESMOND 

a  while,  and  did  not  join  the  army  till  later,  in  the  suite  o\ 
his  Grace  the  Commander-in-Chief.  His  dear  mother,  on  the 
last  day  before  Esmond  went  away,  and  when  the  three  dined 
together,  made  Esmond  promise  to  befriend  her  boy,  and 
5  besought  Frank  to  take  the  example  of  his  kinsman  as  of  a 
loyal  gentleman  and  brave  soldier,  so  she  was  pleased  to  say ; 
and  at  parting,  betrayed  not  the  least  sign  of  faltering  or 
weakness,  though,  God  knows,  that  fond  heart  was  fearful 
enough  when  others  were  concerned,  though  so  resolute  in 

10  bearing  its  own  pain. 

Esmond's  general  embarked  at  Harwich.  Twas  a  grand 
sight  to  see  Mr.  Webb  dressed  in  scarlet  on  the  deck,  waving 
his  hat  as  our  yacht  put  off,  and  the  guns  saluted  from  the 
shore.   Harry  did  not  see  his  Viscount  again,  until  three  months 

15  after,  at  Bois-le-Duc,  when  his  Grace  the  Duke  came  to  take 
the  command,  and  Frank  brought  a  budget  of  news  from 
home :  how  he  had  supped  with  this  actress,  and  got  tired  of 
that;  how  he  had  got  the  better  of  Mr.  St.  John,°  both  over 
the  bottle,  and  with  Mrs.   Mountford,°  of  the  Haymarket 

20  Theatre  (a  veteran  charmer  of  fifty,  with  whom  the  young 
scape-grace  chose  to  fancy  himself  in  love) ;  how  his  sister 
was  always  at  her  tricks,  and  had  jilted  a  young  baron  for  an 
old  earl.  "I  can't  make  out  Beatrix,"  he  said;  "she  cares 
for  none  of  us  —  she  only  thinks  about  herself ;  she  is  never 

25  happy  unless  she  is  quarrelling;  but  as  for  my  mother  —  my 
mother,  Harry,  is  an  angel."  Harry  tried  to  impress  on  the 
young  fellow  the  necessity  of  doing  everything  in  his  power  to 
please  that  angel;  not  to  drink  too  much;  not  to  go  into 
debt;   not  to  run  after  the  pretty  Flemish  girls,  and  so  forth, 

30  as  became  a  senior  speaking  to  a  lad.  "  But  Lord  bless  thee  ! " 
the  boy  said,  "  I  may  do  what  I  like,  and  I  know  she  will  love 
me  all  the  same;"  and  so,  indeed,  he  did  what  he  liked 
Everybody  spoiled  him,  and  his  grave  kinsman  as  much  aa 
the  rest. 


HENRY  ESMOND  271 

CHAPTER  XII 

I   GET  A   COMPANY   IN   THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1706 

On  Whit-Sunday,  the  famous  23rd  of  May,  1706,  my  young 
lord  first  came  under  the  fire  of  the  enemy,  whom  we  found 
posted  in  order  of  battle,  their  lines  extending  three  miles  or 
more,  over  the  high  ground  behind  the  little  Gheet  river,°  and 
having  on  his  left  the  little  village  of  Anderkirk  or  Autre-  5 
eglise,  and  on  his  right  Ramillies,  which  has  given  its  name 
to  one  of  the  most  brilliant  and  disastrous  days  of  battle 
that  history  ever  hath  recorded. 

Our  Duke  here  once  more  met  his  old  enemy  of  Blenheim, 
the  Bavarian  Elector  and  the  jMareschal  Villeroy,  over  whom  la 
the  Prince  of  Savoy  had  gained  the  famous  victory  of  Chiari.° 
What  Enghshman  or  Frenchman  doth  not  know  the  issue  of 
that  day?     Having  chosen  his  own  ground,  having  a  force 
superior  to  the  English,  and  besides  the  excellent  Spanish  and 
Bavarian  troops,  the  whole   Maison-du-Roy  with  him,  the  in- 
most splendid  body  of  Horse  in  the  world,  —  in  an  hour  (and 
in  spite  of  the  prodigious   gallantry  of  the   French   Royal 
Household,  who  charged  through  the  centre  of  our  line  and 
broke   it),   this   magnificent   army   of   Villeroy  was   utterly 
routed  by  troops  that  had  been  marching  for  twelve  hours,  20 
and  by  the  intrepid  skill  of  a  commander  who  did,  indeed, 
seem  in  the  presence  of  the  enemy  to  be  the  very  Genius  of 
Victory. 

I  think  it  was  more  from  conviction  than  policy,  though 
that  policy  was  surely  the  most  prudent  in  the  world,  that  25 
the  great  Duk^  always  spoke  of  his  victories  with  an  extraor- 
dinary modesty,  and  as  if  it  was  not  so  much  his  own  ad- 
mirable genius  and  courage  which  achieved  these  amazing 
successes,  but  as  if  he  was  a  special  and  fatal  instrument  in 
the  hands  of  Providence,  that  willed  irresistibly  the  enemy's  3<^ 
overthrow.  Before  his  actions,  he  always  had  the  Church 
service  read  solemnly,  and  professed  an  undoubting  belief 
that  our  Queen's  arms  were  blessed  and  our  victory  sure. 
A.11  the  letters  which  he  writ  after  his  battles  show  awe  rather 


272  HENRY   ESMOND 

than  exultation ;  and  he  attributes  the  glory  of  these  achieve' 
ments,  about  which  I  have  heard  mere  petty  officers  and  men 
bragging  with  a  pardonable  vain-glory,  in  no  wise  to  his  own 
bravery  or  skill,  but 'to  the  superintending  protection  of 
5  Heaven,  which  he  ever  seemed  to  think  was  our  especial  ally. 
And  our  army  got  to  believe  so,  and  the  enemy  learnt  to 
think  so  too;  for  we  never  entered  into  a  battle  without  a 
perfect  confidence  that  it  was  to  end  in  a  victory;  nor  did 
the  French,  after  the  issue  of  Blenheim,  and  that  astonishing 

10  triumph  of  Ramillies,  ever  meet  us  without  feeling  that  the 
game  was  lost  before  it  was  begun  to  be  played,  and  that  our 
general's  fortune  was  irresistible.  Here,  as  at  Blenheim,  the 
Duke's  charger  was  shot,  and  'twas  thought  for  a  moment  he 
was  dead.     As  he  mounted  another,  Binfield,  his  ]\Iaster-of- 

15  the-Horse,  kneeling  to  hold  his  Grace's  stirrup,  had  his  head 
shot  away  by  a  cannon-ball.  A  French  gentleman  of  the 
Royal  Household,  that  was  a  prisoner  with  us,  told  the  writer 
that  at  the  time  of  the  charge  of  the  Household,  when  their 
Horse  and  ours  were  mingled,  an  Irish  officer  recognised  the 

20  Prince-Duke,  and  calling  out  — "  IMarlborough,  Marlbor- 
ough !"  fired  his  pistol  at  him  a  hout-portant°  and  that  a  score 
more  carbines  and  pistols  were  discharged  at  him.  Not  one 
touched  him :  he  rode  through  the  French  Cuirassiers 
sword-in-hand,  and  entirely  unhurt,  and  calm  and  smiling, 

25  rallied  the  German  Horse,  that  was  reeling  before  the  enemy, 
brought  these  and  twenty  squadrons  of  Orkney's  back  upon 
them,  and  drove  the  French  across  the  river  again,  —  leading 
the  charge  himself,  and  defeating  the  only  dangerous  move 
the  French  made  that  day. 

30  Major-General  Webb  commanded  on  the  left  of  our  line, 
and  had  his  own  regiment  under  the  orders  of  their  beloved 
colonel.  Neither  he  nor  they  belied  their  character  for  gal- 
lantry on  this  occasion  ;  but  it  was  about  his  dear  young  lord 
that  I']smond  was  anxious,  never  ha\ing  sight  of  him  save 

35  on(!e,  in  the  whole  course  of  the  day,  when  he  brought  an 
order  from  the  Commander-in-Chief  to  Mr.  Webb.  When 
our  Horse,  having  cliarged  round  the  right  flank  of  the  enemy 
by  Overkirk,  hacl  thrown  him  into  entire  confusion,  a  general 
advance  was  made,  and  our  whole  line  of  Foot,  crossing  the 


HENRY  ESMOND  273 

little  river  and  the  morass,  ascended  the  high  ground  where 
the  French  were  posted,  cheering  as  they  went,  the  enemy- 
retreating  before  them.  'Twas  a  ser\T.ce  of  more  glory  than 
danger,  the  French  battalions  never  waiting  to  exchange 
push  of  pike  or  bayonet  with  ours ;  and  the  gunners  flying  5 
from  their  pieces  which  our  line  left  behind  us  as  they  ad- 
vanced, and  the  French  fell  back. 

At  first  it  was  a  retreat  orderly  enough ;  but  presently  the 
retreat  became  a  rout,  and  a  frightful  slaughter  of  the  French 
ensued  on  this  panick;  so  that  an  army  of  sixty  thousand  10 
men  was  utterly  crushed  and  destroyed  in  the  course  of  a 
couple  of  hours.  It  was  as  if  a  hurricane  had  seized  a  com- 
pact and  numerous  fleet,  flung  it  all  to  the  winds,  shattered, 
sunk,  and  annihilated  it;  afflavit  Deus,  et  dissipati  sunt° 
The  French  army  of  Flanders  was  gone,  their  artillery,  their  15 
standards,  their  treasure,  provisions,  and  ammunition  were 
all  left  behind  them :  the  poor  devils  had  even  fled  without 
their  soup-kettles,  which  are  as  much  thepallacha  of  the  French 
infantry  as  of  the  Grand  Signor's  Janissaries,  °  and  round 
which  they  rally  even  more  than  round  their  lilies.  20 

The  pursuit,  and  a  dreadful  carnage  which  ensued  (for 
the  dregs  of  a  battle,  however  brilliant,  are  ever  a  base  resi- 
due of  rapine,  cruelty,  and  drunken  plunder),  was  carried 
far  beyond  the  field  of  Ramillies. 

Honest  Lockwood,  Esmond's  servant,  no  doubt  wanted  to  25 
be  among  the  marauders  himself  and  take  his  share  of  the 
booty;  for  when,  the  action  over,  and  the  troops  got  to  their 
ground  for  the   night,   the   Captain  bade   Lockwood  get  a 
horse,  he  asked,  with  a  very  rueful  countenance,  whether 
his  honour  would  have  him  come,  too ;   but  his  honour  only  3a 
bade  him  go  about  his  own  business,  and  Jack  hopped  away 
quite   delighted   as   soon   as   he   saw   his   master   mounted. 
Esmond  made  his  way,  and  not  without  danger  and  difficulty, 
to   his   Grace's   headquarters,    and   found   for   himself   very 
quickly  where  the  aides-de-camp's  quarters  were,  in  an  out-  35 
building  of  a  farm,  where  several  of  these  gentlemen  were 
seated,  drinking  and  singing,  and  at  supper.     If  he  had  any 
anxiety  about  his  boy,  'twas  reheved  at  once.     One  of  the 
gentlemen  was  singing  a  song  to  a  tune  that  Mr.  Farquhar 


274  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  Mr.  Gay°  both  had  used  in  their  admirable  comedies, 
and  very  popular  in  the  army  of  that  day;  after  the  song 
came  a  chorus,  "Over  the  hills  and  far  away;'^  and  Esmond 
heard  Frank's  fresh  voice  soaring,  as  it  were,  over  the  songs 

5  of  the  rest  of  the  young  men  —  a  voice  that  had  always  a 
certain  artless,  indescribable  pathos  with  it,  and  indeed 
which  caused  Mr.  Esmond's  eyes  to  fill  with  tears  now,  out 
of  thankfulness  to  God  the  child  was  safe  and  still  alive  to 
laugh  and  sing. 

10  When  the  song  was  over  Esmond  entered  the  room,  where 
he  knew  several  of  the  gentlemen  present,  and  there  sat  my 
young  lord,  having  taken  off  his  cuirass,  his  waistcoat 
open,  his  face  flushed,  his  long  yellow  hair  hanging  over  his 
shoulders,  drinking  with  the  rest ;  the  youngest,  gayest,  hand- 

15  somest  there.  As  soon  as  he  saw  Esmond,  he  clapped  down 
his  glass,  and,  running  towards  his  friend,  put  both  his  arms 
round  him  and  embraced  him.  The  other's  voice  trembled 
with  joy  as  he  greeted  the  lad;  he  had  thought  but  now 
as  he  stood  in  the  court-yard  under  the  clear-shining  moon- 

20  light ;"  Great  God!    what  a  scene  of  murder  is  here   within 

•  a  mile  of  us;  what  hundreds  and  thousands  have  faced 
danger  to-day;  and  here  are  these  lads  singing  over  their 
cups,  and  the  same  moon  that  is  shining  over  j^onder  horrid 
field  is  looking  down  on  Walcote  very  likely,  while  my  lady 

25  sits  and  thinks  about  her  boy  that  is  at  the  war."  As 
Esmond  embraced  his  young  -pupil  now,  'twas  with  the  feel- 
ing of  c^uite  religious  thankfulness,  and  an  almost  paternal 
pleasure  that  he  beheld  him. 

Round  his  neck  was  a  star  with  a  striped  ribbon,  that  was 

30  made  of  small  brilliants  and  might  be  worth  a  hundred 
crowns.  "Look,"  says  he,  "won't  that  be  a  pretty  present 
for  mother?" 

"Who  gave   you  the   Order?"  says  Harry,   saluting  the 
gentlemen  :  "  did  you  win  it  in  battle  ?  " 

35  "I  won  it,"  cried  the  other,  "with  my  sword  and  my  spear. 
There  was  a  mousquetaire  that  had  it  round  his  neck,  — 
such  a  big  mousquetaire,  as  l)ig  as  (Jeneral  Webb.  I  called 
out  to  him  to  surrender,  and  that  I'd  give  him  quarter: 
he  called  me  a  -petit  polisso7i°  and  fired  his  pistol  at  me,  and 


HENRY   ESMOND  275 

then  sent  it  at  my  head  with  a  curse.  I  rode  at  him,  sir, 
drove  my  sword  right  under  his  arm-hole,  and  broke  it  in 
the  rascal's  body.  I  found  a  purse  in  his  holster  with  sixty- 
five  Louis  in  it,  and  a  bundle  of  love-letters,  and  a  flask  of 
Hungary-water.  Vive  la  guerre° !  there  are  the  ten  pieces  5 
you  lent  me.  I  should  like  to  have  a  fight  every  day;" 
and  he  pulled  at  his  little  moustache  and  bade  a  servant 
bring  a  supper  to  Captain  Esmond. 

Harry  fell  to  with  a  very  good  appetite;  he  had  tasted 
nothing  since  twent}^  hours  ago,  at  early  dawn.  Master  la 
Grandson, °  who  read  this,  do  you  look  for  the  history  of 
battles  and  sieges?  Go,  find  them  in  the  proper  books; 
this  is  only  the  story  of  your  grandfather  and  his  family. 
Far  more  pleasant  to  him  than  the  victory,  though  for  that 
too  he  may  say  meminisse  fuvat°  it  was  to  find  that  the  15 
day  w^as  over,  and  his  dear  young  Castlewood  was  unhurt. 

And  would  you,  sirrah,  wish  to  know  how  it  was  that  a 
sedate  Captain  of  Foot,  a  studious  and  rather  solitary  bache- 
lor of  eight  or  nine  and  twenty  j^ears  of  age,  who  did  not 
care  very  much  for  the  joUities  which  his  comrades  engaged  20 
in,  and  was  never  known  to  lose  his  heart  in  an}^  garrison 
town  —  should  you  wish  to  know  why  such  a  man  had  so 
prodigious  a  tenderness,  and  tended  so  fondly  a  boy  of  eigh- 
teen, wait,  my  good  friend,  until  thou  art  in  love  with  thy 
school-fellow's  sister,  and  then  see  how  mighty  tender  thou  2c, 
wilt  be  towards  him.     Esmond's  general  and  his  Grace  the 
Prince-Duke  were  notoriously  at  A'ariance,  and  the  former's 
friendship  was  in  nowise  likely  to  advance  any  man's  pro- 
motion,  of  whose   services   Webb   spoke   well;    but   rather 
likely  to  injure  him,  so  the  army  said,  in  the  favour  of  the  3a 
greater  man.     However,  Mr.  Esmond  had  the  good  fortune 
to    be    mentioned    very   advantageously   by   jNIajor-General 
Webb  in  his  report  after  the  action ;    and  the  major  of  his 
regiment  and  two  of  the  captains  having  been  killed  upon  * 
the  da}"  of  Ramillies,  Esmond,  who  was  second  of  the  heuten-  2;{ 
ants,  got  his  company,  and  had  the  honour  of  ser\ing  as 
Captain  Esmond  in  the  next  campaign. 

M}"  lord  went  home  in  the  winter,  but  Esmond  was  afraid  to 
follow  him.     His  dear  mistress  WTote  him  letters  more  than 


276  HENRY   ESMOND 

once,  thanking  him,  as  mothers  know  how  to  thank,  for  his 
care  and  protection  of  her  boy,  extolhng  Esmond's  own 
merits  with  a  great  deal  more  praise  than  they  deserved; 
for  he  did  his  duty  no  better  than  any  other  officer;  and 
5  speaking  sometimes,  though  gently  and  cautiously,  of 
Beatrix.  News  came  from  home  of  at  least  half  a  dozen 
grand  matches  that  the  beautiful  maid  of  honour  was  about 
to  make.  She  was  engaged  to  an  earl,  our  gentlemen  of  St. 
James's  said,  and  then  jilted  him  for  a  duke,  who,  in  his 

10  turn,  had  drawn  off.  Earl  or  duke  it  might  be  who  should 
win  this  Helen,  Esmond  knew  she  would  never  bestow  her- 
self on  a  poor  captain.  Her  conduct,  it  was  clear,  was  little 
satisfactory  to  her  mother,  who  scarcely  mentioned  her, 
or  else  the  kind   lady  thought  it  was  best  to  say  nothing, 

15  and  leave  time  to  work  out  its  cure.  At  any  rate,  Harr}'- 
was  best  away  from  the  fatal  object  which  always  wrought 
him  so  much  mischief ;  and  so  he  never  asked  for  leave  to  go 
home,  but  remained  with  his  regiment  that  was  garrisoned 
in  Brussels,  which  city  fell  into  our  hands  when  the  victory 

20  of  Ramillies  drove  the  French  out  of  Flanders. 


CHAPTFlR  XIII 

I   MEET   AN    OLD   ACQUAINTANCE    IN    FLANDERS,    AND   FIND    MY 
mother's    grave   and   my   own    CRADLE    THERE 

Being  one  day  in  the  Church  of  St.  Gudule,  at  Brussels, 
admiring  the  antique  splendour  of  the  architecture  (and 
always  entertaining  a  great  tenderness  and  reverence  for 
the  Mother  Church,  that  hath  been  as  wickedly  persecuted 

25  in  England,  as  ever  she  herself  persecuted  in  the  days  of  her 
prosperity),  Esmond  saw  kneeling  at  a  side  altar,  an  officer 

*  in  a  green  uniform  coat,  very  deeply  engaged  in  devotion. 
Something  familiar  in  the  figure  and  posture  of  the  kneeling 
man  struck  Captain  Esmond,  even  before  he  saw  the  officer's 

30  face.  As  he  rose  up,  putting  away  into  hispocket  a  httle 
black  breviary,  such  as  priests  use,  Esmond  beheld  a  counte- 
nance so  lik(;  that  of  his  friend  and  tutor  of  early  days,  Father 


HENRY   ESMOND  277 

Holt,  that  he  broke  out  into  an  exclamation  of  astonish- 
ment and  advanced  a  step  towards  the  gentleman   who  was 
making  his  way  out  of  church.     The  German  officer^  too 
looked  surprised  when  he  saw  Esmond,  and  his  face  from 
being  pale  grew  suddenly  red.     By  this  mark  of  recognition,  5 
the  Englishman  knew  that  he  could  not  be  mistaken;  and 
though  the  other  did  not  stop,  but  on  the  contrary  rather 
hastify  walked   away   towards   the   door,  Esmond   pursued 
him  and  faced  him  once  more,  as  the  officer,  helping  himself 
to  holy  water,  turned  mechanically  towards  the  altar  to  bow  la 
to  it  ere  he  quitted  the  sacred  edifice. 
.     "My  Father!''  says  Esmond  in  English. 

"Silence!  I  do  not  understand.  I  clo  not  speak  Englls"/' 
says  the  other,  in  Latin. 

Esmond  smiled  at  this  sign  of  confusion,  and  replied  15 
in  the  same  language.  "I  should  know  my  Father  "d 
any  garment,  black  or  white,  shaven  or  bearded:''  tor 
the  Austrian  officer  was  habited  quite  in  the  military 
manner,  and  had  as  warlike  a  moustachio  as  any  Pan- 
dour.  °  ^0 

He  laughed  —  we  were  on  ths  chu"?h  steps  by  this  time, 
passing  through  the  crowd  of  beggars  that  U3ually  is  there 
holding  up  little  trinkets  for  sale  and  whining  for  alms. 
"You  speak  Latin,"  says  he,  "in  the  Enghsh  wiy,  Harry 
Esmond,  you  have  forsaken  the  old  true  Roman  tongue  25 
you  onc^  knew."  His  tone  was  very  frank  and  friendly 
quite ;  iiw  kind  voice  of  fifteen  years  back ;  he  gave  Esmond 
his  hand  as  he  spoke. 

"Otheis  have  changed  their  coats  too,  my  Father,"  says 
Esmond    glancing  at  his  friend  s  military  decoration.  3a 

"Hush!  I  am  Mr.  or  Captain  ^'^?n  Holtz,  in  the  Bavarian 
Elector  s  service,  and  on  a  mission  to  his  Highness  the  Prince 
of  Savoy.  You  can  keep  a  sscret,  I  know  from  old 
times." 

"Captain  von  Holtz,'  sayj  Esmond^    "I  am  your  very  35 
humble   servant.  ' 

"And  you  too  have  changed  your  coat,"  continues  the 
other  in  his  laughing  way;  "I  have  heard  of  you  at  Cam- 
bridge and  afterwards :   we  have  friends  everywhere ;   and  I 


278  HENRY   ESMOND 

am  told  that  Mr.  Esmond  at  Cambridge  was  as  good  a  fencei 
as  he  was  a  bad  theologian."  (So,  thinks  Esmond,  my  old 
maitre  d'ar?nes  was  a  Jesuit  as  they  said.) 

''Perhaps  you  are  right,"  says  the  other,  reading  his 
5  thoughts  quite  as  he  used  to  do  in  old  days:  ''you  were 
all  but  killed  at  Hochstedt  of  a  wound  in  the  left  side.  You 
were  before  that  at  Mgo,  aide-de-camp  to  the  Duke  of  Or- 
monde. You  got  your  company  the  other  day  after  Ramillies ; 
your  general   and  the   Prince-Duke  are  not  friends;    he  is 

10  of  the  Webbs  of  Lydiard  Tregoze,  in  the  county  of  York, 
a  relation  of  my  Lord  St.  John.  Your  cousin,  M.  de  Castle- 
wood,  served  his  first  campaign  this  year  in  the  Guard : 
yes,  I  do  know  a  few  things,  as  you  see." 

Captain  Esmond  laughed  in  his  turn.     "You  have  indeed  a 

15  curious  knowledge,"  he  says.  A  foible  of  Mr.  Holt's,  who 
did  know  more  about  books  and  men  than,  perhaps,  almost 
any  person  Esmond  had  ever  met,  w^as  omniscience ;  thus 
in  every  point  he  here  professed  to  know,  he  was  nearly 
right,   but   not    quite.     Esmond's  wound  was  in  the   right 

20  side,  not  the  left;  his  first  general  was  General  Lumley; 
Mr.  Webb  came  out  of  Wiltshire,  not  out  of  Yorkshire; 
and  so  forth.  Esmond  did  not  think  fit  to  correct  his  old 
master  in  these  trifling  blunders,  but  they  served  to  give 
him  a  knowledge  of  the  other's  character,  and  he  smiled  to 

25  think  that  this  was  his  oracle  of  early  days;  only  now  no 
longer  infallible  or  divine. 

"Yes,"  continues  Father  Holt,  or  Captain  von  Holtz, 
"for  a  man  who  has  not  been  in  England  these  eight  years 
I  know  what  goes  on  in  London  \'ery  well.     The  old  Dean  is 

30  dead,  my  Lady  Castle  wood's  father.  Do  you  know  that 
your  recusant  bishops°  wanted  to  consecrate  him  Bishop  of 
Southampton,  °  and  that  Collier°  is  Pisliop  of  Thetford 
by  the  same  imposition  ?  The  Princess  Anne  has  the  gout 
and  eats  too  much;   when  the  King  returns,  Colher  will  be 

35  an  archbishop." 

"Amen!"  says  Esmond,  laughing;  "and  I  hope  to  see 
your  eminence  no  longer  in  jack-boots,  but  red  stockings, 
at  Whitehall." 

"  You  arc  always  with  us  —  I  know  that  —  1  neard  of  that 


HENRY  ESMOND  279 

vThen  you  were  at  Cambridge ;  so  was  the  late  lord ;  so  is  the 
young  Viscount." 

''And  so  was  my  father  before  me/'  said  Mr.  Esmond, 
looking  calmly  at  the  other,  who  did  not,  however,  show 
the  least  sign  of  intelligence  in  his  impenetrable  grey  eyes  —  5 
how  well  Harry  remembered  them  and  their  look !  only 
crows '-feet  were  wrinkled  round  them  —  marks  of  black 
old  Time,  who  had  settled  there. 

Esmond's  face  chose  to  show  no  more  sign  of  meaning 
than  the  Father's.     There  may  have  been  on  the  one  side  10 
and  the  other  just  the  faintest  glitter  of  recognition,  as  you 
see  a  bayonet  shining  out  of  an  ambush;    but  each  party 
fell  back,  when  everything  was  again  dark. 

"Andyou,  mon  capitaine,°  where  have  3^ou  been?"  says 
Esmond,  turning  away  the  conversation  from  this  dangerous  15 
ground,  where  neicher  chose  to  engage. 

"I  may  have  been  in  Pekin,"  says  he,  "or  I  may  have  been 
in    Paraguay^  —  wdio    knows    where  ?     I    am    now   Captain 
von  Holtz,  in  the  service  of  his  Electoral  Highness,  come 
to   negotiate   exchange   of  prisoners   with   his   Highness   of  20 
Savo}^" 

'Twas  well  known  that  very  many  officers  in  our  army 
were  well  affected  towards  the  young  king  at  St.  Germains, 
whose  right  to  the  throne  was  undeniable,  and  whose  acces- 
sion to  it,  at  the  death  of  his  sister,  by  far  the  greater  part  25 
of  the  English  people  would  have  preferred,  to  the  having 
a  petty  German  prince°  for  a  sovereign,  about  whose  cruelty, 
rapacity,  boorish  manners,  and  odious  foreign  ways  a  thousand 
stories  were  current.  It  wounded  our  English  pride  to  think 
that  a  shabby  High-Dutch  duke,  whose  revenues  were  not  30 
a  tithe  as  great  as  those  of  many  of  the  princes  of  our- ancient 
English  nobility,  who  could  not  speak  a  word  of  our  language, 
and  whom  we  chose  to  represent  as  a  sort  of  German  boor, 
feeding  on  train-oil  and  sour-crout,  with  a  bevy  of  mistresses 
in  a  barn,  should  come  to  reign  over  the  proudest  and  most  35 
pohshed  people  in  the  world.  Were  we,  the  conquerors  of 
the  Grand  Monarch,  to  submit  to  that  ignoble  domination? 
What  did  the  Hanoverian's  Protestantism  matter  to  us? 
Was  it  not  notorious  (we  were  told,  and  led  to  believe  so) 


280  HENRY   ESMOND 

that  one  of  the  daughters  of  this  Protestant  hero  was  being 
bred  up  with  no  religion  at  all,  as  yet,  and  ready,  to  be  made 
Lutheran  or  Roman,  according  as  the  husband  might  be, 
whom  her  parents  should  find  for  her?  This  talk,  very 
5  idle  and  abusive  much  of  it  was,  went  on  at  a  hundred  mess- 
tables  in  the  army ;  there  was  scarce  an  ensign  that  did  not 
hear  it,  or  join  in  it,  and  everybody  knew,  or  affected  to  know, 
that  the  Commander-in-Chief  himself  had  relations  with 
his  nephew,  the  Duke  of  Berwick  ('twas  by  an  Englishman, 

10  thank  God,  that  we  were  beaten  at  Almanza°),  and  that 
his  Grace  was  most  anxious  to  restore  the  royal  race  of  his 
benefactors,  and  to  repair  his  former  treason. 

This  is  certain,  that  for  a  considerable  period  no  officer  in 
the  Duke's  army  lost  favour  with  the  Commander-in-Chief 

15  for  entertaining  or  proclaiming  his  loyalty  towards  the  exiled 
family.  When  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George,  as  the  King  of 
England  called  himself,  came  with  the  dukes  of  the  French 
blood-royal,  to  join  the  French  army  under  Vendosme,  hun- 
dreds of  ours  saw  him  and  cheered  him,  and  we  all  said  he 

20  was  like  his  father  in  this,  who,  seeing  the  action  of  La  Hogue° 
fought  between  the  French  ships  and  ours,  w^as  on  the  side 
of  his  native  country  during  the  battle.  But  this,  at  least, 
the  Chevalier  knew,  and  every  one  knew,  that,  however  well 
our  troops  and  their  general  might  be  inclined  towards  the 

25  prince  personally,  in  the  face  of  the  enemy  there  was  no 
question  at  all.  Wherever  my  Lord  Duke  found  a  French 
army,  he  would  fight  and  beat  it,  as  he  did  at  Oudenarde,° 
two  years  after  Ramillies,  where  his  Grace  achieved  another 
of  his  transcendent  victories;    and  the  noble  young  prince, 

30  who  charged  gallantly  along  with  the  magnificent  Maison-du- 
Roy,  sent  to  compliment  his  concjuerors  after  the  action. 

In  this  battle,  where  the  young  Electoral  Prince  of  Hanover 
behaved  himself  very  gallantly,  fighting  on  our  side,  Esmond's 
dear  General  Webb  distinguished  himself  prodigiously,  ex- 

35  hibiting  consummate  skill  and  coolness  as  a  general,  and 
fighting  with  the  personal  bravery  of  a  common  soldier. 
Esmond's  good  luck  again  attended  him  ;  he  escaped  without 
a  hurt,  altiiough  more  than  a  third  of  his  regiment  was  killed, 
had  again  the  honour  to  be  favourably  mentioned  in  his  com- 


HENRY   ESMOND  281 

mander's  report,  and  was  advanced  to  the  rank  oi  major. 
But  of  this  action  there  is  httle  need  to  speak,  as  it  hath  been 
related  in  every  Gazette,  and  talked  of  in  every  hamlet  in 
this  country.  To  return  from  it  to  the  writer's  private 
affairs,  which  here,  in  his  old  age,  and  at  a  distance,  he  nar-  5 
rates  for  his  children  who  come  after  him.  Before  Oudenarde, 
and  after  that  chance  rencontre  with  Captain  von  Holtz  at 
Brussels,  a  space  of  more  than  a  year  elapsed,  during  which 
the  captain  of  Jesuits  and  the  captain  of  Webb's  Fusileers 
were  thrown  very  much  together.  Esmond  had  no  difficulty  la 
in  finding  out  (indeed,  the  other  made  no  secret  of  it  to  him, 
being  assured,  from  old  times,  of  his  pupil's  fideHt}^  that  the 
negotiator  of  prisoners  was  an  agent  from'  St.  Germains,  and 
that  he  carried  intelligence  between  great  personages  in  our 
camp  and  that  of  the  French.  ''My  business,"  said  he —  ^5 
"and  I  tell  you,  both  because  I  can  trust  you,  and  your  keen 
eyes  have  already  discovered  it  —  is  between  the  King  of 
England  and  his  subjects,  here  engaged  in  fighting  the  French 
Idng.  As  between  you  and  them,  all  the  Jesuits  in  the  world 
will  not  prevent  your  quarrelling:  fight  it  out,  gentlemen.  20 
St.  George  for  England, °  I  say  —  and  you  know  who  says  so, 
wherever  he  may  be." 

I  think  Holt  loved  to  make  a  parade  of  mystery,  as  it  w^re, 
and  would  appear  and  disappear  at  our  quarters  as  suddenly 
as  he  used  to  return  and  vanish  in  the  old  days  at  Castle  wood.  25 
He  had  passed  between  both  armies,  and  seemed  to  know  (but 
with  that  inaccuracy  which  belonged  to  the  good  Father's 
omniscience)  eciualiy  well  what  passed  in  the  French  camp 
and  in  ours.  One  day  he  would  give  Esmond  news  of  a 
great  feste  that  took  place  in  the  French  quarters,  of  a  supper  30 
of  Monsieur  de  Rohan's, °  where  there  was  play  and  violins, 
and  then  dancing  and  masques;  the  King  drove  thither  in 
Marshal  Villars's°  own  guinguetta.°  Another  day  he  had 
the  news  of  his  Majesty's  ague :  the  King  had  not  had  a  fit 
these  ten  days,  and  might  be  said  to  be  well.  Captain  Holtz  35 
made  a  visit  to  England  during  this  time,  so  eager  was  he 
about  negotiating  prisoners;  and  'twas  on  returning  from 
this  voyage  that  he  began  to  open  himself  more  to  Esmond, 
and  to  make  him,  as  occasion  served,  at  their  various  meet- 


282  HENRY   ESMOND 

ings,  several  of  those  confidences  which  are  here  set  down  al^ 
together. 

The  reason  of  his  increased  confidence  was  this:  upon 
going  to  London,  the  old  director  of  Esmond's  aunt,  the 

5  dowager,  paid  her  ladyship  a  visit  at  Chelsea,  and  there  learnt 
from  her  that  Captain  Esmond  was  acquainted  with  the 
secret  of  his  family,  and  was  determined  never  to  divulge  it. 
The  knowledge  of  this  fact  raised  Esmond  in  his  old  tutor's 
eyes,  so  Holt  was  pleased  to  say,  and  he  admired  liarry  very 

10  much  for  his  abnegation. 

''The  family  at  Castlewood  have  done  far  more  for  me 
than  my  own  ever  did,"  Esmond  said.  "I  would  give  my 
life  for  them.  Why  should  I  grudgs  the  only  benefit  that 
'tis  in  my  power  to  confer  on  them?"     The  good  Father's 

15  eyes  filled  with  tears  at  this  speech,  which  to  the  other 
seemed  very  simple :  he  embraced  Esmond,  and  broke  out 
into  many  admiring  expressions;  he  said  he  was  a  nohle 
c(Bur°  that  he  was  proud  of  him,  and  fond  of  him  as  his  pupil 
and  friend  —  regretted  more  than  ever  that  he  had  lost  him, 

20  and  been  forced  to  leave  him  in  those  early  times,  when  he 
might  have  had  an  influence  over  him,  have  brought  him  into 
that  only  true  church,  to  which  the  Father  belonged,  and 
enlisted  him  in  the  noblest  army  in  which  a  man  ever  engaged 
—  meaning  his  own  Society  of  Jesus,  which  numbers  (says  he) 

25  in  its  troops  the  greatest  heroes  the  world  ever  knew;  — 
warriors,  brave  enough  to  dare  or  endure  anything,  to  en- 
counter any  odds,  to  die  any  death ;  —  soldiei's  that  have 
won  triumphs  a  thousand  times  more  brilliant  than  those  of 
the  greatest  general :    that  have  brought  nations    on    their 

30  knees  to  their  sacred  banner,  the  Cross ;   that  have  achieved 
glories  and  palms  incomparably  brighter  than  those  awarded 
to  the  most   splendid  earthly  conquerors  —  crowns  of  im- 
mortal light,   and  seats  in  the  high  places  of  Heaven. 
Esmond   was  thankful  for  his  old  friend's  good  opinion, 

35  however  little  he  might  share  the  .Jesuit  Father's  enthusiasm. 
"  I  have  thought  of  that  rjuestion,to(),  "  says  ho,  "  dear  Father," 
and  he  took  the  other's  hand  —  "  thought  it  out  for  myself,  as 
all  men  must,  and  contrive  to  do  the  right,  and  trust  to  Heaven 
as  dcvoutlv  in  my  way  as  you  in  yours.     Another  six  months  of 


HENRY   ESMOND  283 

you  as  a  child,  and  I  had  desired  no  better.  I  used  to  weep 
upon  my  pillow  at  Castlewood  as  I  thought  of  you,  and  I 
might  have  been  a  brother  of  your  order;  and  who  knows," 
Esmond  added,  with  a  smile,  "a  priest  in  full  orders,  and 
with  a  pair  of  moustachios,  and  a  Bavarian  uniform."  5 

"My  son,"  says  Father  Holt,  turning  red,  ''in  the  cause 
of  religion  and  loyalty  all   disguises  are  fair." 

"Yes,"  broke  in  Esmond,  "all  disguises  are  fair,  you  say; 
and  all  uniforms,  say  I,  black  or  red  —  a  black  cockade  or  a 
white  one,  or  a  laced  hat ;  or  a  sombrero, °  with  a  tonsure  under  13 
it.  I  cannot  believe  that  St.  Francis  Xavier°  sailed  over  the 
sea  in  a  cloak,  or  raised  the  dead  —  I  tried ;  and  very  nearly 
did  once,  but  cannot.  Suffer  me  to  do  the  right,  and  to  hope 
for  the  best  in  my  own  way." 

Esmond  wished  to  cut  short  the  good  Father's  theology,  15 
and  succeeded;  and  the  other,  sighing  over  his  pupil's  invin- 
cible ignorance,  did  not  withdraw  his  affection  from  him, 
but  gave  him  his  utmost  confidence  —  as  much,  that  is  to 
say,  as  a  priest  can  give :  more  than  most  do ;  for  he  was 
naturally  garrulous,   and  too  eager  to  speak.  20 

Holt's  friendship  encouraged  Captain  Esmond  to  ask,  what 
he  long  wished  to  know,  and  none  could  tell  him,  some  history 
of  the  poor  mother  whom  he  had  often  imagined  in  his  dreams, 
and  whom  he  never  knew.  He  described  to  Holt  those  cir- 
cumstances which  are  already  put  down  in  the  first  part  of  25 
this  story  —  the  promise  he  had  made  to  his  dear  lord,  and 
that  dying  friend's  confession ;  and  he  besought  Mr.  Holt  to 
tell  him  what  he  knew  regarding  the  poor  woman  from 
whom  he  had  been  taken. 

"She  was  of  this  very  town,"  Holt  said,  and  took  Esmond  30 
to  see  the  street  where  her  father  lived,  and  where,  as  he 
beheved,  she  was  born.  "In  1676,  when  your  father  came 
hither  in  the  retinue  of  the  late  king,  then  Duke  of  York,  and 
banished  hither  in  disgrace,  Captain  Thomas  Esmond  became 
acquainted  with  your  mother,  pursued  her,  and  made  a  victim  35 
of  her :  he  hath  told  me  in  many  subsequent  conversations, 
which  I  felt  bound  to  keep  private  then,  that  she  was  a  woman 
of  great  virtue  and  tenderness,  and  in  all  respects  a  most  fond, 
faithful  creature.     He  called  himself  Captain  Thomas,  having 


284  HENRY  ESMOND 

good  reason  to  be  ashamed  of  his  conduct  towards  her,  and 
hath  spoken  to  me  many  times  with  sincere  remorse  for  that, 
as  with  fond  love  for  her  many  amiable  qualities.  He  owned 
to  having  treated  her  very  ill ;  and  that  at  this  time  his  life 
5  was  one  of  profligacy,  gambling,  and  poverty.  She  became 
with  child  of  you;  was  cursed  by  her  own  parents  at  that 
discovery;  though  she  never  upbraided,  except  by  her  in- 
voluntary tears,  and  the  misery  depicted  on  her  countenance, 
the  author  of  her  wretchedness  and  ruin. 

10  "  Thomas  Esmond  —  Captain  Thomas,  as  he  was  called  — 
became  engaged  in  a  gaming-house  brawl,  of  which  the 
consequence  was  a  duel,  and  a  wound,  so  severe  that  he 
never  —  his  surgeon  said  —  could  outUve  it.  Thinking 
his  death  certain,  and  touched  with  remorse,  he  sent  for  a 

15  priest,  of  the  very  Church  of  St.  Gudule,  where  I  met  you; 
and  on  the  same  day,  after  his  making  submission  to  our 
Church,  was  married  to  your  mother  a  few  weeks  before 
you  were  born.  My  Lord  Viscount  Castlewood,  ]\Iarquis  of 
Esmond  by  King  James's  patent,  which  I  myself  took  to  your 

20  father,  your  lordship  was  christened  at  St.  Gudule  by  the 
same  cure  who  married  your  parents,  and  by  the  name  of 
Henry  Thomas,  son  of  E.  Thomas,  officer  Anglois,  and  Ger- 
trude Maes.  You  see  you  belong  to  us  from  your  birth,  and 
why  I  did  not  christen  you  when  you  became  my  dear  little 

25  pupil  at  Castlewood. 

"  Your  father's  wound  took  a  favorable  turn  —  perhaps  his 
conscience  was  eased  by  the  right  he  had  done  —  and  to  the 
surprise  of  the  doctors  he  recovered.  But  as  his  health  came 
back,  his  wicked  nature,  too,  returned.     He  was  tired  of  the 

30  poor  gii  1  whom  he  had  ruined  ;  and  receiving  some  remittance 
from  his  uncle,  my  lord  the  old  Viscount,  then  in  England,  ho 
pretended  business,  promised  return,  and  never  saw  your 
poor  mother  more. 

"  He  owned  to  me,  in  confession  first,  but  afterwards  in  talk 

1:  before  your  aunt,  his  wife,  else  I  never  could  have  disclosed 
what  I  now  tell  you,  that  on  (coming  to  London  ho  writ  a  pre- 
tended confession  to  poor  Gertrude  Maes  —  (iiertrude  Es- 
mond—  of  his  liaving  been  married  in  England  previously, 
before  uniting  himself  with  her;   said  that  his  name  was  not 


HENRY   ESMOND  285 

Thomas ;  that  he  was  about  to  quit  Europe  for  the  Virghiia 
plantations,  where,  indeed,  your  family  had  a  grant  of  land 
from  King  Charles  the  First ;  sent  her  a  supply  of  money,  the 
half  of  the  last  hundred  guineas  he  had,  entreated  her  pardon, 
and  bade  her  farewell.  5 

"  Poor  Gertrude  never  thought  that  the  news  in  this  letter 
might  be  untrue  as  the  rest  of  your  father's  conduct  to  her. 
But  though  a  young  man  of  her  own  degree,  who  knew  her 
history,  and  whom  she  liked  before  she  saw  the  English 
gentleman  who  was  the  cause  of  all  her  misery,  offered  to  la 
marry  her,  and  to  adopt  you  as  his  own  child,  and  give  you 
his  name,  she  refused  him.  This  refusal  only  angered  her 
father,  who  had  taken  her  home ;  she  never  held  up  her  head 
there,  being  the  subject  of  constant  unkindness  after  her  fall; 
and  some  devout  ladies  of  her  acquaintance  offering  to  pay  15 
a  httle  pension  for  her,  she  went  into  a  convent,  and  you  were 
put  out  to  nurse. 

''A  sister  of  the  young  fellow,  who  would  have  adopted  you 
as  his  son,  was  the  person  who  took  charge  of  you.  Your 
mother  and  this  person  were  cousins.  She  had  just  lost  a  20 
child  of  her  own,  which  you  replaced,  your  own  mother  being 
too  sick  and  feeble  to  feed  you;  and  presently  your  nurse 
grew  so  fond  of  you,  that  she  even  grudged  letting  you  visit 
the  convent  where  your  mother  was,  and  where  the  nuns 
petted  the  little  infant,  as  they  pitied  and  loved  its  unhappy  25 
parent.  Her  vocation  became  stronger  every  day,  and  at  the 
end  of  two  years  she  was  received  as  a  sister  of  the  house. 

''Your  nurse's  family  were  silk-weavers  out  of  France, 
whither  they  returned  to  Arras°  in  French  Flanders.  nhortV/ 
before  your  mother  took  her  vows,  carrying  you  with  them,  30 
then  a  child  of  three  years  old.  'Twas  a  town,  before  the  late 
vigorous  measures  of  the  French  king,  full  of  Protestants,  and 
here  your  nurse's  father,  old  Pastoureau,  he  with  whom  you 
afterwards  lived  at  Ealing,  adopted  the  Reformed  doctrines, 
perverting  all  his  house  Avith  him..  They  were  expelled  35 
thence  by  the  edict  of  his  IMost  Christian  Majesty,  and  came 
to  London,  and  set  up  their  looms  in  Spittlefields.  The  old 
man  brought  a  httle  money  with  him,  and  carried  on  his 
trade,  but  in  a  poor  way.     He  was  a  widower ;   by  this  time 


286  HENRY   ESMOND 

his  daughter,  a  widow  too,  kept  house  for  him,  and  hi? 
son  and  he  laboured  together  at  their  vocation.  Meanwhile 
your  father  had  publicly  owned  his  conversion  just  before 
King  Charles's  death  (in  whom  our  Church  had  much  such 
5  another  convert) ,  was  reconciled  to  my  Lord  Viscount  Castle- 
wood,  and  married,  as  you  know,  to  his  daughter. 

''  It  chanced  that  the  younger  Pastoureau,  going  with  a  piece 
of  brocade  to  the  mercer  who  employed  him,  on  Ludgate  Hill, 
met  his  old  rival  coming  out  of  an  ordinary  there.     Pastoureau 

10  knew  your  father  at  once,  seized  him  by  the  collar,  and  up- 
braided him  as  a  villain,  who  had  seduced  his  mistress,  and 
afterwards  deserted  her  and  her  son.  Mr.  Thomas  Esmond 
also  recognised  Pastoureau  at  once,  besought  him  to  calm  his 
indignation,  and  not  to  bring  a  crowd  round  about  them  ;  and 

15  bade  him  to  enter  into  the  tavern,  out  of  which  he  had  just 
stepped,  when  he  would  give  him  any  explanation.  Pas- 
toureau entered,  and  hearcl  the  landlord  order  the  drawer  to 
show  Captain  Thomas  to  a  room ;  it  was  by  his  Christian 
name  that  your  father  was  familiarly  called  at  his  tavern 

20  haunts,  which,  to  say  the  truth,  were  none  of  the  most  repu- 
table. 

''I  must  tell  you  that  Captain  Thomas,  or  my  Lord  Vis- 
count afterwards,  was  never  at  a  loss  for  a  story,  and  could 
cajole  a  woman  or  a  dun  with  a  volubility,  and  an  air  of  sim- 

25  plicity  at  the  same  time,  of  which  many  a  creditor  of  his  has 
been  the  dupe.  His  tales  used  to  gather  verisimilitude  as  he 
went  on  with  them.  He  strung  together  fact  after  fact  with 
a  wonderful  rapidity  and  coherence.  It  required,  saving 
your  presence,  a  very  long  habit  of  acquaintance  with  your 

30  father  to  know  when  his  lordship  was  1 ,  —  telling  the 

truth  or  no. 

"  He  told  me  with  rueful  remorse  when  he  was  ill  —  for  the 
fear  of  death  set  him  instantly  repenting,  and  with  shrieks  of 
laughter  when  he  was  well,  his  lordship  having  a  very  great 

35  sense  of  humour  —  how  in  half  an  hour's  time,  and  before  a 
bottle  was  drunk,  he  had  completely  succeeded  in  biting 
poor  Pastoureau.  The  seduction  he  owned  to ;  that  he 
could  not  help  :  he  was  quite  ready  with  tears  at  a  moment's 
warning,   and   shed   them   profusely  to   melt   his   credulous 


HENRY   ESMOND  287 

listener.  He  wept  for  your  mother  even  more  than  Pas- 
toureau  did,  who  cried  very  heartily,  poor  fellow,  as  my  lord 
informed  me;  he  swore  upon  his  honour  that  he  had  twice 
sent  money  to  Brussels,  and  mentioned  the  name  of  the 
merchant  with  whom  it  was  lying  for  poor  Gertrude's  use.  5 
He  did  not  even  know  whether  she  had  a  child  or  no,  or 
whether  she  was  alive  or  dead ;  but  got  these  facts  easily  out 
of  honest  Pastoureau's  answers  to  him.  When  he  heard  that 
she  was  in  a  convent,  he  said  he  hoped  to  end  his  days  in 
one  himself,  should  he  survive  his  wife,  whom  he  hated,  and  ic 
had  been  forced  by  a  cruel  father  to  marry ;  and  when  he  was 
told  that  Gertrude's  son  was  alive,  and  actually  in  London, 
'I  started/  says  he;  'for  then,  damme,  my  wife  was  ex- 
pecting to  lie-in,  and  I  thought,  should  this  old  Put,°  my 
father-in-law,  run  rusty,  here  would  be  a  good  chance  to  15 
frighten  him.' 

"He  expressed  the  deepest  gratitude  to  the  Pastoureau 
family  for  their  care  of  the  infant :   you  were  now  near  six 
years  old;   and  on  Pastoureau  bluntly  telhng  him,  when  he 
proposed  to  go  that  instant  and  see  the  darling  child,  that  20 
they  never  wished  to  see  his  ill-omened  face  again  within 
their  doors ;  that  he  might  have  the  boy,  though  they  should 
ail  be  very  sorry  to  lose  him ;   and  that  they  would  take  his 
money,  they  being  poor,  if  he  gave  it ;   or  bring  him  up,  by 
God's  help,  as  they  had  hitherto  done,  without ;    he  acqui-  25 
escecl  in  this  at  once,  with  a  sigh,  and  said,  '  Well,  'twas  better 
that  the  dear  child  should  remain  with  friends  who  had  been 
so  admirably  kind  to  him  ;'  and  in  his  talk  to  me  afterwards, 
honestly   praised   and   admired   the   weaver's   conduct    and 
spirit;    owned  that  the  Frenchman  was  a  right  fellow,  and  3c 
he,  the  Lord  have  mercy  upon  him,   a  sad   villain. 

"Your  father,"  Mr.  Holt  went  on  to  say,  "was  good- 
natured  with  his  money  when  he  had  it;  and  ha\ing  that 
day  received  a  supply  from  his  uncle,  gave  the  weaver  ten 
pieces  with  perfect  freedom,  and  promised  him  further  35 
remittances.  He  took  clown  eagerly  Pastoureau 's  name  and 
place  of  abode  in  his  table-book,  and  when  the  other  asked 
him  for  his  own,  gave,  with  the  utmost  readiness,  his  name 
as  Captain  Thomas,  New  Lodge,  Penzance,  Cornwall";    he 


288  HENRY   ESMOND 

said  he  was  in  London  for  a  few  days  only  on  business  con- 
nected with  his  wife's  property;  described  her  as  a  shrew, 
though  a  woman  of  kind  disposition ;  and  depicted  his  father 
as  a  Cornish  squire,  in  an  infirm  state  of  health,  at  whose 
5  death  he  hoped  for  something  handsome,  when  he  promised 
richly  to  reward  the  admirable  protector  of  his  child,  and  to 
provide  for  the  boy.  'And  by  Gad,  sir,'  he  said  to  me  in 
his  strange  laughing  way,  'I  ordered  a  piece  of  brocade  of 
the  very  same  pattern  as  that  which  the  fellow  was  carrying, 

10  and  presented  it  to  my  wife  for  a  morning  wrapper,  to  receive 
company  in  after  she  lay-in  of  our  little  boy.' 

''Your  Httle  pension  was  paid  regularly  enough;  and  when 
your  father  became  Viscount  Castlewood  on  his  uncle's 
demise,   I  was  employed  to  keep  a  watch  over  you,   and* 

15  'twas  at  my  instance  that  you  were  brought  home.  Your 
foster-mother  was  dead;  her  father  made  acquaintance 
with  a  woman  whom  he  smarried,  who  quarrelled  with  his 
son.  The  faithful  creature  came  back  to  Brussels  to  be  near 
the  woman  he  loved,  and  died,  too,  ^  few  months  before  her. 

20  Will  you  see  her  cross  in  the  convent  cemetery?  The 
Superior  is  an  old  penitent  of  mine,  and  remembers  Soeur 
Marie  Madeleine °  fondly  still."     • 

Esmond  came  to  this  spot  in  one  sunny  evening  of  spring, 
and   saw,   amidst   a  thousand   black   crosses,   casting  their 

25  shadows  across  the  grassy  mounds,  that  particular  one 
which  marked  his  mother's  resting-place.  Many  more  of 
those  poor  creatures  that  lay  there  had  adopted  that  same 
name,  with  whicli  sorrow  had  rebaptised  her,  and  which 
fondly  seemed   to  hint  their  individual  story  of  love  and 

30  grief.  He  fancied  her,  in  tears  and  darkness,  kneeling  at 
the  foot  of  her  cross,  under  which  her  cares  were  buried. 
Surely  he  knelt  down,  and  said  his  own  prayer  there,  not 
in  sorrow  so  much  as  in  awe  (for  even  his  memory  had  no 
recollection  of  her),  and  in  pity  for  the  pangs  which  the 

35  gentle  soul  in  life  had  been  made  to  suffer.  To  this  cross 
she  brought  th(!m  ;  for  this  heavenly  bridegroom  she  ex- 
changed the  husband  who  had  wooed  her,  the  traitor  who 
had  left  her.     A  thousand  such  hillocks  lay  round  about, 


HENRY  ESMOND  289 

the  gentle  daisies  springing  out  of  the  grass  over  them,  and 
each  bearing  its  cross  and  requiescat.  A  nun,  veiled  in 
black,  was  kneeling  hard  by,  at  a  sleeping  sister's  bed-side 
(so  fresh  made,  that  the  spring  had  scarce  had  time  to  spin  a 
coverlid  for  it) ;  beyond  the  cemetery  walls  you  had  glimpses  5 
of  life  and  the  world,  and  the  spires  and  gables  of  the  city.  A 
bird  came  down  from  a  roof  opposite,  and  lit  first  on  a  cross, 
and  then  on  the  grass  below  it,  whence  it  flew  away  presently 
with  a  leaf  in  its  mouth :  then  came  a  sound  as  of  chanting, 
from  the  chapel  of  the  sisters  hard  by :  others  had  long  since  k 
filled  the  place  which  poor  Mary  Magdalene  once  had  there, 
were  kneeling  at  the  same  stall,  and  hearing  the  same  hymns 
and  prayers  in  which  her  stricken  heart  had  found  con- 
solation. Might  she  sleep  in  peace  —  might  she  sleep  in 
peace ;  and  we,  too,  when  our  struggles  and  pains  are  OA'er !  ic 
But  the  earth  is  the  Lord's,  as  the  Heaven  is;  we  are  alike 
His  creatures,  here  and  yonder.  I  took  a  little  flower  off  the 
hillock,  and  kissed  it,  and  went  m}^  way,  like  the  bird  that  had 
just  lighted  on  the  cross  by  me,  back  into  the  world  again. 
Silent  receptacle  of  death !  tranciuil  depth  of  calm,  out  of  2c 
reach  of  tempest  and  trouble !  I  felt  as  one  who  had  been 
walking  below  the  sea,  and  treading  amidst  the  bones  of 
shipwrecks. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    CAMPAIGN    OF    1707-1708 

During  the  whole  of  the  year  which  succeeded  that  in 
which  the  glorious  battle  of  Ramillies  had  been  fought,  25 
our  army  made  no  movement  of  importance,  much  to  the 
disgust  of  very  many  of  our  officers,  remaining  inactive  in 
Flanders,  w^ho  said  that  his  Grace  the  Captain-General  had 
had  fighting  enough,  and  was  all  for  money  now,  and  the 
enjoyment  of  his  five  thousand  a  year  and  his  splendid  30 
palace  at  AVoodstock,°  which  was  now  being  built.  And 
his  Grace  had  sufficient  occupation  fighting  his  enemies  at 
home  this  year,  where  it  begun  to  be  whispered  that  his 


290  HENRY   ESMOND 

favour  was  decreasing,  and  his  Duchess  losing  her  hold  on 
the  Queen,  who  was  transferring  her  royal  affections  to  the 
famous  Mrs.  Masham,°  and  Mrs.  Masham's  humble  servant, 
Mr.    Harley.     Against  their  intrigues,   our   Duke   passed   a 

5  great  part  of  his  time  intriguing.  Mr.  Harley  was  got  out 
of  office,  and  his  Grace,  in  so  far,  had  a  victory.  But  her 
Majesty,  convinced  against  her  will,  was  of  that  opinion  still, 
of  which  the  poet  says°  people  are,  when  so  convinced,  and 
Mr.  Harley,  before  long,  had  his  revenge. 

10  ]\Ieanwhile  the  business  of  fighting  did  not  go  on  any  way 
to  the  satisfaction  of  Marlborough's  gallant  lieutenants. 
During  all  1707,  with  the  French  before  us,  we  had  never  so 
much  as  a  battle ;  our  army  in  Spain  was  utterly  routed  at 
Almanza  by  the  gallant  Duke  of  Berwick;  and  we  of  Webb's, 

15  which  regiment  the  young  Duke  had  commanded  before  his 
father's  abdication,  were  a  little  proud  to  think  that  it  was  our 
colonel  who  had  achieved  this  victory.  "I  think  if  I  had  had 
Galway's  place,  and  my  Fusileers,"  says  our  general,  "  we  would 
not  have  laid  down  our  arms,  Q\en  to  our  old  colonel,  as 

20  Galway  did ;"  and  Webb's  officers  swore  if  we  had  had  Webb, 
at  least  we  would  not  have  been  taken  prisoners.  Our  dear 
old  general  talked  incautiously  of  himself  and  of  others; 
a  braver  or  a  more  brilliant  soldier  never  lived  ths,n  he; 
but  he  blew  his  honest  trumpet  rather  more  loudly  than 

25  became  a  commander  of  his  station,  and,  mighty  laan  of 
valour  as  he  was,  shook  his  great  spear,  and  blustered  before 
the  army  too  fiercely. 

Mysterious  Mr.  Holtz  went  off  on  a  secret  expedition  in 
the  early  part  of  1708,  with  great  elation  of  spirits,  and  a 

30  prophecy  to  Esmond  that  a  wonderful  something  was  about 
to  take  place.  This  secret  came  out  on  my  friend's  return 
to  the  army,  whither  he  brought  a  most  rueful  and  dejected 
countenance,  and  owned  that  the  great  something  he  had 
becMi  engaged  upon  had  failed  utterly.     He  had  been  indeed 

35  with  that  luckless  expedition"  of  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George, 
who  was  sent  by  the  French  king  with  ships  and  an  army 
from  Dunkirk,  and  was  to  have  invaded  and  conquered 
Scotland.  But  that  ill  wind  which  ever  oi)posed.  all  the 
projcM'ts  upon  which  the  Prince  ever  embarked,  prevented 


HENRY   ESMOND  291 

the  Chevalier's  invasion  of  Scotland,  as  'tis  known,  and 
blew  poor  I\Ionsieur  von  Holtz  back  into  our  camp  again,  to 
scheme  and  foretell,  and  to  pry  about  as  usual.  The  Cheva- 
lier (the  King  of  England,  as  some  of  us  held  him)  went 
from  Dunkirk  to  the  French  army  to  make  the  campaign  5 
against  us.  The  Duke  of  Burgundy  had  the  command  this 
year,  having  the  Duke  of  Berry  with  him,  and  the  famous 
Mareschal  Vendosme,  and  the  Duke  of  Matignon  to  aid 
him  in  the  campaign.  Holtz,  .who  knew  everything  that 
was  passing  in  Flanders  and  France  (and  the  Indies  for  what  10 
I  know),  insisted  that  there  would  be  no  more  fighting  in 
1708  than  there  had  been  in  the  previous  year,  and  that  our 
commander  had  reasons  for  keeping  him  quiet.  Indeed, 
Esmond's  general,  who  was  known  as  a  grumbler,  and  to 
have  a  hearty  mistrust  of  the  great  Duke,  and  hundreds  15 
more  officers  besides,  did  not  scruple  to  say  that  these  private 
reasons  came  to  the  Duke  in  the  shape  of  crown-pieces  from 
the  French  King,  by  whom  the  Generalissimo"  was  bribed 
to  avoid  a  battle.  There  were  plenty  of  men  in  our  fines, 
quidnuncs,  to  w^hom  ]\Ir.  Webb  listened  only  too  willingly,  20 
who  could  specify  the  exact  sums  the  Duke  got,  how  much 
fell  to  Cadogan's  share,  and  what  was  the  precise  fee  given 
to  Doctor  Hare. 

And  the  successes  with  which  the  French  began  the  cam- 
paign of  1708  served  to  give  strength  to  these  reports  of  trea-  25 
son,  which  were  in  everybody's  mouth.     Our  general  allowed 
the  enemy  to  get  between  us  and  Ghent, °  and  declined  to 
attack  him,  though  for  eight  and  forty  hours  the  armies  were 
in  presence  of  each  other.     Ghent  was  taken,    and  on  the 
same  day  Monsieur  de  •  la  Mothe°   summoned   Bruges ;    and  30 
these    two  great  cities  fell  into  the  hands   of    the    French 
\v^ithout    firing   a   shot.      A  few   days  afterwards  La  Mothe 
seized  upon  the  fort  of  Plashendall :  and  it  began  to  be  sup- 
posed that  all  Spanish  Flanders,  as  well  as  Brabant,  would 
fall  into  the  hands  of  the  French  troops ;  —  when  the  Prince  35 
Eugene  arrived  from  the  ]\Iozelle,  and  then  there  was  no 
more  shilly-shallying. 

The  Prince  of  Savoy  always  signalised  his  arrival  at  the 
army  by   a  great   feast    (my   Lord   Duke's   entertainments 


292  HENRY   ESMOND 

were  both  seldom  and  shabby)  :  and  I  remember  our  general 
returning  from  this  dinner  with  the  tw^o  commanders-in- 
chief;  his  honest  head  a  httle  excited  by  wine,  which  was 
dealt  out  much  more  liberally  by  the  Austrian  than  by  the 
5  English  commander:  —  "Now/'  says  my  general,  slapping 
the  table,  with  an  oath,  "he  must  fight;    and  w^hen  he  is 

forced  to  it,  d it,  no  man  in  Europe  can  stand  up  against 

Jack  Churchill.''     Within  a  week  the  battle  of  Oudenarde 
was  fought,  when,  hate  each  other  as  they  might,  Esmond's 

lo  general  and  the  Commander-in-Chief  were  forced  to  admire 
each  other,  so  splendid  was  the  gallantry  of  each  upon  this 
day. 

The  brigade   commanded   by  Major-General  Webb  gave 
and  received  about  as  hard  knocks  as  any  that  were  delivered 

15  in  that  action,  in  which  Mr.  Esmond  had  the  fortune  to  serve 
at  the  head  of  his  own  company  in  his  regiment,  under  the 
command  of  their  own  colonel  as  Major-General;  and  it 
was  his  good  luck  to  bring  the  regiment  out  of  action  as 
commander  of  it,  the  four  senior   officers  above  him  being 

20  killed  in  the  prodigious  slaughter  which  happened  on  that 
day.  I  like  to  think°  that  Jack  Hay  thorn,  who  sneered  at 
me  for. being  a  bastard  and  a  parasite  of  Webb's,  as  he  chose 
to  call  me,  and  with  whom  I  had  had  words,  shook  hands 
with  me  before  the  battle  begun.     Three  days  before,  poor 

25  Brace,  our  lieutenant-colonel,  had  heard  of  his  elder  brother's 
death,  and  was  heir  to  a  baronetcy  in  Norfolk,  and  four 
thousand  a  year.  Fate,  that  had  left  him  harmless  through  a 
dozen  campaigns,  seized  on  him  just  as  the  world  was  worth 
living  for,   and  he  went   into  action,   knowing,  as  he  said, 

30  that  the  luck  was  going  to  turn  against  him.  The  major 
had  just  joined  us  —  a  creature  of  Lord  Marlborough,  put 
in  much  to  the  dislike  of  the  other  officers,  and  to  be  a  spy 
upon  us,  as  it  was  said.  I  know  not  whether  the  truth  was 
so,  nor  who  took  the  tattle  of.  our  mess  to  headquarters,  but 

35  Webb's  regiment,  as  its  colonel,  w^s  known  to  be  in  the 
Commander-in-Chief's  black  books:  "And  if  he  did  not 
dare  to  break  it  up  at  home,"  our  gallant  old  chief  used  to 
say,  "he  was  determined  to  destroy  it  before  the  enemy;" 
so  that  poor  Major  Proudfoot  was  i)ut  into  a  post  of  danger. 


HENRY    ESMOND  293 

Esmond's  dear  young  Viscount,  serving  as  aide-de-camp 
to  my  Lord  Duke,  received  a  wound,  and  won  an  honourable 
name  for  himself  in  the  Gazette;  and  Captain  Esmond's 
name  was  sent  in  for  promotion  by  his  general,  too,  whose 
favourite  he  was.  It  made  his  heart  beat  to  think  that  5 
certain  eyes  at  home,  the  brightest  in  the  world,  might 
read  the  page  on  which  his  humble  services  were  recorded ; 
but  his  mind  was  made  up  steadily  to  keep  out  of  their  dan- 
gerous influence,  and  to  let  time  and  absence  conquer  that 
passion  he  had  still  lurking  about  him.  Away  from  Beatrix,  ic 
it  did  not  trouble  him ;  but  he  knew  as  certain  that  if  he 
returned  home,  his  fever  would  break  out  again,  and  avoided 
Walcote  as  a  Lincolnshire^  man  avoids  returning  to  his  fens, 
where  he  is  sure  that  the  ague  is  lying  in  wait  for  him. 

We  of  the  Enghsli  party  in  the  army,  who  were  inclined  to  15 
sneer  at  everything  that  came  out  of  Hanover,  and  to  treat 
as  little  better  than  boors  and  savages  the  Elector's  court 
and  family,  were  yet  force-'^  to  confess  that,  on  the  day  of 
Oudenarde,  the  young   Electoral  Prince, °  then  making  his 
first  campaign,  conducted  himself  with  the  spirit  and  courage  20 
of    an    approved    soldier.     On    this    occasion    his    Electoral 
Highness  had  better  luck  \l.an  the  King  of  England,  who 
was  ^\^th  his  cousins  in  the  enemy's  camp,  and  had  to  run 
with  them  at  the  ignominious  end  of  the  day.     With  the 
most  consummate  generals  in  the  world  before  them,  and  an  25 
admirable  commander  on  their  own  side,  they  chose  to  neg- 
lect the  counsels,  and  to  rush  into  a  combat  with  the  former, 
which  would  have  ended  in  the  utter  annihilation  of  their 
army  but  for  the  great  skiL  and  bravery  of  the  Duke  of 
Vendosme,   who    remedied,   as  far  as   courage    and    genius  30 
might,  the  disasters  occasioned  by  the  scjuabbles  and  follies 
of  his  kinsmen,   the  legitimate  princes  of  the  blood-royal. 

"If  the  Duke  of  Berwick  had  but  been  in  the  armv,  the 
fate  of  the  day  would  have  been  very  different,"  was  all 
that  poor  Mr.  von  Holtz  could  say;    "and  you  would  have  35 
seen  that  the  hero  of  Almanza  was  fit  to  measure  swords 
with  the  conqueror  of  Blenheim." 

The  business  relative  to  the  exchange  of  prisoners  was 
always  going  on,  and  was  at  least  that  ostensible  one  which 


294  HENRY   ESMOND 

kept  Mr.  Holtz  perpetually  on  the  move  between  the  force\ 
of  the  French  and  the  Allies.  I  can  answer  for  it,  that  he 
was  once  ver}^  near  hanged  as  a  spy  by  Major-General  Wayne, 
when  he  was  released  and  sent  on  to  headquarters  by  a 
5  special  order  of  the  Commander-in-Chief.  He  came  and 
went,  always  favoured,  wherever  he  was,  by  some  high 
though  occult  protection.  He  carried  messages  between 
the  Duke  of  Berwick  and  his  uncle,  our  Duke.  He  seemed 
to  know  as  well  what  was  taking  place  in  the  Prince's  quarter 

10  as  our  own :  he  brought  the  compliments  of  the  King  of 
England  to  some  of  our  officers,  the  gentlemen  of  Webb's 
among  the  rest,  for  their  behaviour  on  that  great  day;  and 
after  Wynendael,  when  our  general  was  chafing  at  the  neg- 
lect of  our  Commander-in-Chief,  he  said  he  knew  how  that 

15  action  was  regarded  by  the  chiefs  of  the  French  army,  and 
that  the  stand  made  before  Wynendael  wood  was  the  passage 
by  which  the  Allies  entered  Lille. ° 

"Ah!"  says  Holtz  (and  some  folks°  were  very  wilhng  to 
listen  to  him),  ''if  the  King  came  by  his  own,  how  changed 

20  the  conduct  of  affairs  would  be  !  His  Majesty's  very  exile 
has  this  advantage,  that  he  is  enabled-  to  read  England 
impartially,  and  to  judge  honestly  of  all  the  eminent  men. 
His  sister  is  always  in  the  hand  of  one  greedy  favourite  or 
another,  through  whose  eyes  she  sees,  and  to  whose  flattery 

•25  or  dependents  she  gives  away  everything.  Do  you  suppose 
that  his  Majesty,  knowing  England  so  well  as  he  does,  would 
neglect  such  a  man  as  General  Webb?  He  ought  to  be  in 
the  House  of  Peers  as  Lord  Lydiard.°  The  enemy  and  all 
Europe  know  his  merit;    it  is  that  very  reputation  which 

30  certain  great  people,  who  hate  all  equality  and  independence, 
can  never  pardon."  It  was  intended  that  these  conversa- 
tions should  be  carried  to  Mr.  Webb.  They  were  very  wel- 
come to  him,  for  great  as  his  services  were,  no  man  could 
value  them  more  than  John  Richmond  Webb  did  himself, 

35  and  the  differences  between  him  and  Marlborough  being 
notorious,  his  CJrace's  enemies  in  the  army  and  at  home 
began  to  court  Webb,  and  set  him  up  against  the  all-grasj^ing, 
domineering  chief.  And  soon  after  the  victory  of  Oudenarde 
a  glorious  opportunity  fell  into  General  Webb's  way,  which 


HENRY   ESMOND  295 

that  gallant  warrior  did  not  neglect,  and  which  gave  him  the 
means  of  immensely  increasing  his  reputation  at  home. 

After  Oudenarde,  and  against  the  counsels  of  I\Iarlborough, 
it  was  said,  the  Prince  of  Savoy  sat  down  before  Lille,  the 
capital  of  French  Flanders,  and  commenced  that  siege,  5 
the  most  celebrated  of  our  time,  and  almost  as  famous  as 
the  siege  of  Troy  itself,  for  the  feats  of  valour  performed  in  the 
assault  and  the  defence.  The  enmity  of  the  Prince  of  Savoy 
against  the  French  king  was  a  furious  personal  hate,  quite 
unlike  the  calm  hostiUty  of  our  great  English  general,  who  10 
was  no  more  moved  by  the  game  of  war  than  that  of  billiards, 
and  pushed  forward  his  squadrons,  and  drove  his  red  bat- 
talions hither  and  thither  as  calmly  as  he  would  combine  a 
stroke  or  make  a  cannon  with  the  balls.  The  game  over 
(and  he  played  it  so  as  to  be  pretty  sure  to  win  it),  not  the  least  15 
animosity  against  the  other  party  remained  in  the  breast  of 
this  consummate  tactician.  Whereas  between  the  Prince  of 
Savoy  and  the  French  it  was  guerre  a  mort°  Beaten  off  in 
one  quarter,  as  he  had  been  at  Toulon°  in  the  last  year,  he  was 
back  again  on  another  frontier  of  France,  assaihng  it  with  his  20 
indefatigable  fury.  When  the  Prince  came  to  the  army,  the 
smouldering  fires  of  war  were  lighted  up  and  burst  out  into 
a  flame.  Our  phlegmatick  Dutch  allies  were  made  to  advance 
at  a  quick  march  -  -  our  calm  Duke  forced  into  action.  The 
Prince  was  an  army  in  himself  against  the  French;  the  25 
energy  of  his  hatred  prodigious,  indefatigable  —  infectious 
over  handreds  of  thousands  of  men.  The  Emperor's  general 
was  repaying,  and  with  a  vengeance,  the  slight °  the  French 
king  had  put  upon  the  fiery  little  Abbe  of  Savoy.  BriUiant 
and  famous  as  a  leader  himself,  and  beyond  all  measure  daring  30 
and  intrepid,  and  enabled  to  cope  with  almost  the  best  of 
those  famous  men  of  war  who  commanded  the  armies  of  the 
French  king,  Eugene  had  a  weapon,  the  equal  of  which  could 
not  be  found  in  France,  since  the  cannon-shot  of  Sasbach° 
laid  low  the  noble  Turenne,  and  could  hurl  Marlborough  at  35 
the  heads  of  the  French  host,  and  crush  them  as  with  a  rock, 
under  which  all  the  gathered  strength  of  their  strongest  cap- 
tains must  go  down. 

The  English  Duke  took  little  part  in  that  vast  siege  of 


296  HENRY   ESMOND 

Lille,  which  the  Imperial  Generalissimo  pursued  with  all  his 
force  and  ^^gour,  further  than  to  cover  the  besieging  hnes 
from  the  Duke  of  Burgundy's  army,  between  which  and  the 
Imperialists  our  Duke  lay.  Once,  when  Prince  Eugene  was 
5  wounded,  our  Duke  took  his  Highness 's  place  in  the  trenches ; 
but  the  siege  was  with  the  Imperialists,  not  with  us.  A 
division  under  Webb  and  Rantzau  was  detached  into  Artois 
and  Pi(;ardy°  upon  the  most  painful  and  odious  service  that 
Mr.  Esmond  ever  saw  in  the  course  of  his  military  hfe.     Tli^e 

10  wretched  towns  of  the  defenceless  provinces,  whose  young 
men  had  been  drafted  away  into  the  French  armies,  which 
year  after  year  the  insatiable  war  devoured,  were  left  at  our 
mercy ;  and  our  orders  were  to  show  them  none.     We  found , 
places  garrisoned  by  invalids,  and  children  and  women  :  poor 

15  as  they  were,  and  as  the  costs  of  this  miserable  war  had  made 
them,  our  commission  was  to  rob  these  almost  starving 
WTetches  —  to  tear  the  food  out  of  their  granaries,  and  strip 
them  of  their  rags.  Twas  an  expedition  of  rapine  and 
murder  we  were  sent  on :   our  soldiers  did  deeds  such  as  an 

20  honest  man  must  blush  to  remember.  We  brought  l;ack 
money  and  provisions  in  quantity  to  the  Duke's  camp;  there 
had  been  no  one  to  resist  us,  and  j'et  who  dares  to  tell  with 
what  murder  and  violence,  with  what  brutal  cruelty,  outrage, 
insult,  that  ignoble  booty  had  been  ravished  from  the  inno- 

25  cent  and  miserable  victims  of  the  war  ? 

Meanwhile,  gallantly  as  the  operations  before  Lille  had 
been  conducted,  the  Allies  had  made  but  little  progress,  and 
'twas  said  when  we  returned  to  the  Duke  of  Marll)()rough's 
camp  that  the  siege  would  never  be  bi  ought  to  a  satisfy  ctory 

30  end,  and  that  the  Prince  of  Savoy  wo'J.d  be  forced  to  raise  it. 
My  Lord  Marlboi'ough  gave  this  as  his  oj)inion  openly,  +hose 
who  mistrust(;d  him,  and  Mr.  Esmond  owns  himself  to  be  of 
the  number,  hintcMl  that  the  Duke  had  his  reasons  why  Lille 
should  not  be  taken,  and  that  he  was  paid  to  that  end  by 

35  the  French  king.  If  this  was  so,  and  I  believe  it,  (General 
Webb  liad  now  a  i-emarkable  oppoi'tunity  of  gratifying  his 
hatred  of  the  Commander-in-(;hief,  of  balking  tliat  sliameful 
avarice,  which  was  one  of  the  basest  and  most  notorious 
qualities  of  the  famous  Duke,  and  of  showing  his  own  con- 


HENRY   ESMOND  297 

summate  sldll  as  a  commander.  And  when  I  consider  all  the 
circumstances  preceding  the  event  which  will  now  be  related, 
that  my  Lord  Duke  was  actually  offered  certain  millions  of 
crowns,  provided  that  the  siege  of  Lille  should  be  raised ;  that 
the  Imperial  army  before  it  was  without  provisions  and  5 
ammunition,  and  must  have  decamped  but  for  the  supplies 
that  they  received;  that  the  march  of  the  convoy  destined  to 
relieve  the  siege  was  accurately  known  to  the  French ;  and  that 
the  force  covering  it  was  shamefully  inadecjuate  to  that  end, 
and  by  six  times  inferior  to  Count  de  ^a  Mothe's  army,  which  10 
was  sent  to  intercept  the  convoy;  when  'tis  certain  that  the 
Duke  of  Berwick,  de  la  ^Mothe's  cliief,  was  in  constant  cor- 
respondence with  his  uncle,  the  English  Generalissimo :  I 
beheve  on  my  conscience  that  'twas  my  Lord  ^larlborough's 
intention  to  prevent  those  supplies,  of  which  the  Prince  of  15 
Savoy  stood  in  absolute  need,  from  ever  reaching  his  High- 
ness; that  he  meant  to  sacrifice  the  little  army,  which  cov- 
ered this  convoy,  and  to  betray  it  as  he  had  betrayed  ToUe- 
mache  at  Brest°;  as  he  betrayed  every  friend  he  had,  to 
further  his  own  schemes  of  avarice  or  ambition.  But  for  20 
the  miraculous  victory  which  Esmond's  general  won  over  an 
army  six  or  seven  times  greater  than  his  own,  the  siege  of 
Lille  must  have  been  raised ;  and  it  must  be  remembered  that 
our  gallant  little  force  was  under  the  command  of  a  general 
whom  i\Iarlborough  hated,  that  he  was  furious  with  the  con-  25 
queror,  and  tried  by  the  most  open  and  shameless  injustice 
afterwards  to  rob  liim  of  the  credit  of  his  victory. 


CHAPTER  XV 

GENERAL  WEBB  WINS  THE  BATTLE  OF  WYNENDAEL 

By  the  besiegers  and  besieged  of  Lille,  some  of  the  most 
brilliant  feats  of  valour  were  performed,  that  ever  illustrated 
any  war.  On  the  French  side  (whose  gallantry  was  pro-  30 
digious,  the  skill  and  bravery  of  ^larshal  Boufflers°  actually 
eclipsing  those  of  his  concj[ueror,  the  Prince  of  Savoy)  may  be 
mentioned  that  daring  action  of  Messieurs  de  Luxembourg 


298  HENRY  ESMOND 

and  Tournefort,  who,  with  a  body  of  Horse  and  Dragoons, 
carried  powder  into  the  town,  of  which  the  besieged  were  in 
extreme  want,  each  soldier  bringing  a  bag  with  forty  pounds 
of  powder  behind  him ;  with  which  perilous  provision  they 
5  engaged  our  own  Horse,  faced  the  fire  of  the  Foot  brought 
out  to  meet  them  :  and  though  half  of  the  men  were  blown 
up  in  the  dreadful  errand  they  rode  on,  a  part  of  them  gc^:,  into 
the  town  with  the  succours  of  which  the  garrison  was  so  much 
in  want.     A  French  officer,  Monsieur  du  Bois,  performed  an 

lo  act  equally  daring,  and  perfectly  successful.  The  Duke's 
great  army  lying  at  Helchin,°  and  covering  the  siege,  and  it 
being  necessary  for  ■\I.  de  Vendosme  to  get  news  of  the  con- 
dition of  the  place,  Captain  Dubois  performed  his  famous 
exploit :   not  only  passing  through  the  lines  of  the  siege  but 

15  swimming  afterwards  no  less  than  seven  moats  and  ditches: 
and  coming  back  the  same  way  swimming  with  his  letters 
in  his  mouth. 

By  these  letters  Monsieur  de  Boufflers  said  that  he  could 
undertake  to  hold  the  place^till  October;    and  that  if  one  of 

20  the  convoys  of  the  Allies  could  be  intercepted  they  must  raise 
the  siege  altogether. 

Such  a  convoy  as  hath  been  said  was  now  prepared  at 
Ostend,°  and  about  to  march  for  the  siege;  and  on  the  27th 
September  we  (and  the  French  too)  had  news  that  it  was  on 

23  its  way.  It  was  composed  of  700  waggons°  containing  am- 
munition of  all  sorts,  and  was  escorted  out  of  Ostend  by 
2000  Infantry  and  300  Horse.  At  the  same  time  M.  de  la 
Mothe  fjuitted  Bruges,  having  with  him  five-and-thirty 
battalions,  and  upwards  of  sixty  squadrons,  and  forty  guns, 

3c  in  pursuit  of  the  convoy. 

Major-(Jencral  Webb  had  meanwhile  made  up  a  force  of 
twenty  l)attalions,  and  three  squadrons  of  dragoons,  at 
Tunmt,  whence  he  mo\'ed  to  cover  the  convoy  and  pursue  la 
Mothe :   with  whose  advanced  guard  ours  came  up  upon  the 

35  great  plain  of  Turout,  and  before  the  little  wood  and  castle 
of  Wynondael :    behind  which  the  convoy  was  marc^hing. 

As  soon  as  they  came  in  sight  of  the  enemy  our  advanced 
troops  were  halted,  with  the  wood  behind  them,  and  the  rest 
of  our  force  brought  up  as  (juickly  as  possible,  our  little  body 


HENRY   ESMOND  299 

of  Horse  being  brought  forward  to  the  opening  of  the  plain, 
as  our  general  said,  to  amuse  the  enemy.  When  M.  de  la  Mothe 
came  up  he  found  us  posted  in  two  lines  in  front  of  the  w^ood ; 
and  formed  his  own  army  in  battle  facing  ours,  in  eight  lines, 
four  of  infantry  in  front  and  dragoons  and  cavalry  behind.       5 

The  French  began  the  action,  as  usual,  with  a  cannonade 
which  lasted  three  hours,  when  they  made  their  attack,  ad- 
vancing in  twelve  lines,  four  of  Foot  and  four  of  Horse,  upon 
the  allied  troops  in  the  wood  where  we  were  posted.  Their 
infantry  behaved  ill ;  they  were  ordered  to  charge  with  the  la 
bayonet,  but,  instead,  began  to  fire,  and  almost  at  the  very 
first  discharge  from  our  men,  broke  and  fled.  The  cavalry 
behaved  better;  with  these  alone,  who  were  three  or  four 
times  as  numerous  as  our  whole  force.  Monsieur  de  la  }.Iothe 
might  have  won  a  victory:  but  only  two  of  our  battahons  15 
were  shaken  in  the  least ;  and  these  speedily  raUied :  nor 
could  the  repeated  attacks  of  the  French  horse  cause  our 
troops  to  budge  an  inch  from  the  position  in  the  wood  in 
which  our  general  had  placed  them. 

After  attacking  for  two  hours  the  French  retired  at  nightfall  20 
entirely  foiled.     With  all  the  loss  we  had  inflicted  upon  him, 
the  enemy  was  still  three  times  stronger  than  we;    and  it 
could  not  be  supposed  that  our  general  could  pursue  M.  de  la 
Mothe,  or  do  much  more  than  hold  our  ground  about  the 
wood,  from  which  the  Frenchman  had  in  vain  attempted  to  25 
dislodge  us.     La  Mothe  retired   behind  his  forty  guns,  his 
cavalry  protecting  them  better  than  it  had  been  enabled  to 
annoy  us ;    and  meanwhile  the  convoy,  which  was  of  more 
importance  than  all  our  little  force,  and  the  safe  passage  of 
which  we  would  have  dropped  to  the  last  man  to  accomphsh,  33 
marched  away  in  perfect  safety  during  the  action,  and  joy- 
fully reached  the  besieging  camp  before  Lille. 

Major-General  Cadogan,  my  Lord  Duke's  Quartermaster- 
General  (and  between  whom  and  ]\Ir.  Webb  there  was  no  love 
lost),  accompanied  the  convoy,  and  joined  Mr.  Webb  with  a  T,ti 
couple  of  hundred  Horse  just  as  the  battle  was  over  and  the 
enemy  in  full  retreat.  He  offered,  readily  enough,  to  charge 
with  his  Horse  upon  the  French  as  they  fell  back;  but  his 
force  was  too  weak  to  inflict  any  damage  upon  them ;    and 


300  "  HENRY   ESMOND 

Mr.  Webb,  commanding  as  Cadogan's  senior,  thought  enough 
was  done  in  holding  our  ground  before  an  enemy  that  might 
still  have  overwhelmed  us,  had  we  engaged  him  in  the  open 
territory,  and  in  securing  the  safe  passage  of  the  convoy. 
5  Accordingly,  the  Horse  brought  up  b}^  Cadogan  did  not  draw 
a  sword ;  and  only  prevented,  by  the  good  countenance  the}'' 
showed,  any  disposition  the  French  might  have  had  to  renew 
the  attack  on  us.  And  no  attack  coming,  at  nightfall  Gen- 
eral Cadogan  drew  off  with  his  squadron,  being  bound  for 

10  headquarters,  the  two  generals  at  parting  grimly  saluting 
each  other. 

''He  will  be  at  Roncq  time  enough  to  lick  my  Lord  Duke's 
trenchers  at  supper,"  says  Mr.  Webb. 

Our  own  men  lay  out  in  the  woods  of  Wynendael  that  night, 

15  and  our  general  had  his  supper  in  the  little  castle  there. 

''If  I  was  Cadogan,  I  would  have  a  peerage  for  this  day's 
work,"  General  Webb  said;  "and  Harr}^,  thou  shouldst  have 
a  regiment.  Thou  hast  been  reported  in  the  last  two  actions : 
thou  wert  near  killed  in  the  first.     I  shall  mention  thee  in  my 

20  despatch  to  his  Grace  the  Commander-in-Chief,  and  recom- 
mend thee  to  poor  Dick  Harwood's  vacant  majority. °  Have 
you  ever  a  hundred  guineas  to  give  Cardonnel°?  Slip  them 
into  his  hand  to-morrow,  when  you  go  to  headquarters  with 
my  report." 

25  In  this  report  the  Major-General  was  good  enough  to 
mention  Captain  Esmond's  name  with  particular  favour; 
and  that  gentleman  carried  the  despatch  to  headquarters  the 
next  day,  and  was  not  a  little  pleased  to  bring  back  a  letter 
by  his  Grace's  secretary,   addressed   to  Lieutenant-General 

30  Webb.      The  Dutch    officer    despatched    by    Count    Nassau 

Woudenbourg,  Va-lt-MarcschaP  Auverquerque's  son,  brought 

ba('k  also  a  complimentary  letter  to  his  commander,  who  had 

seconded  Mr.  Webb  in  the  action  with  great  valour  and  skill. 

Esmond,  with  a  low  bow  and  a  smiling  face,  presented  his 

35  despatch,  and  saluted  Mr.  Webb  as  Lieutenant-General,  as 
he  gave  it  in.  The  gentlemen  round  about  him  —  he  was 
riding  with  his  suite  on  the  road  to  Menin  as  l^Jsmond  came 
up  with  him  —  gave  a  cheer,  and  he  thanked  them,  and 
opened  the  despatch  with  rather  a  flushed  eager  face. 


HENRY   ESMOND  301 

He  slapped  it  down  on  his  boot  in  a  rage,  after  he  had  read 
it.  "Tis  not  even  writ  with  his  own  hand.  Read  it  out, 
Esmond."     And  Esmond  read  it  out:  — 

"Sir  —  Mr.  Cadogan  is  just  now  come  in,  and  has  ac- 
quainted me  with  the  success  of  the  action  you  had  yesterday  5 
in  the  afternoon  against  the  body  of  troops  commanded  by 
M.  de  la  Mothe,  at  AVynendael,  which  must  be  attributed 
chiefly  to  your  good  conduct  and  resolution.  You  may  be 
sure  I  shall  clo  you  justice  at  home,  and  be  glad  on  all  oc- 
casions to  own  the  service  you  have  done  in  securing  this  10 
convoy.  —  Yours,  etc.,  M.'' 

"Two  lines  by  that  d d  Cardonnel,  and  no   more,  for 

the  taking  of  Lille  —  for  beating  five  times  our  number  — 
for  an  action  as  brilHant  as  the  best  he  ever  fought."  says 
poor   Mr.    Webb.        "  Lieutcnant-Gene-ral !     That's    not   his  15 

doing.     I  was  the  oldest  major-general.     By ,  I  believe 

he  had  been  better  pleased,  if  I  had  been  beat." 

The  letter  to  the  Dutch  officer  was  in  French,  and  longer 
and  more  complimentary  than  that  to  Mr.  Webb. 

"And  this  is  the  man,"  he  broke  out,  "that's  gorged  with  20 
gold,  —  that's  covered  with  titles  and  honours  that  we  won 
for  him,  —  and  that  grudges  even  a  line  of  praise  to  a  com- 
rade in  arms!  Hasn't  he  enough?  Don't  we  fight  tl;at  he 
may  roll  in  riches  ?  Well,  well,  wait  for  the  Gazette,  gentle- 
men. The  Queen  and  the  country  will  do  us  justice,  if  his  25 
Grace  denies  it  us."  There  were  tears  of  rage  in  the  brave 
warrior's  eyes,  as  he  spoke  ;  and  he  dashed  them  off  his  face  on 
to  his  glove.  He  shook  his  fist  in  the  air.  "  Oh,  by  the  Lord  ! " 
says  he,  "I  know  what  I  had  rather  have  than  a  peerage  I" 

"And -what  is  that,  sir?"  some  of  them  asked.  30 

"  I  had  rather  have  a  quarter  of  an  hour  with  John  Churchill, 
on  a  fair  green  field,  and  only  a  pair  of  rapiers  between  my 
shirt  and  his " 

"Sir!"  interposes  one. 

"Tell  him  so!     I  know  that's  what  you  mean.     I  know  35 
every  word  goes  to  him  that's  dropped  from  every  general 
officer's  mouth.     I  don't  say  he's  not  brave.     Curse  him ! 
he's  brave  enough;  but  we'll  wait  for  the  Gazette,  gentlemen. 
God  save  her  Majesty  !    she'll  do  us  justice." 


"302  HENRY   ESMOND 

The  Gazette  did  not  come  to  us  till  a  month  afterwards; 
when  my  general  and  his  officers  had  the  honour  to  dine  with 
Prince  Eugene  in  Lille ;  his  Highness  being  good  enough  to 
say  that  we  had  brought  the  provisions,  and  ought  to  share  in 
5  the  banquet.  Twas.a  great  banquet.  His  Grace  of  Marl- 
borough was  on  his  Highness's  right,  and  on  his  left  the 
Mareschal  de  Boufflers,  who  had  so  bravely  defended  the 
place.  The  chief  officers  of  either  army  were  present;  and 
you  may  be  sure  Esmond's  general  was  splendid  this  day: 

10  his  tall,  noble  person  and  manly  beauty  of  face  made  him 
remarkable  anywhere ;  he  wore,  for  the  first  time,  the  star 
of  the  Order  of  Generosity, °  that  his  Prussian  Majesty  had 
sent  to  him  for  his  victory.  His  Highness  the  Prince  of 
Savoy  called  a  toast  to  the  conqueror  of  Wynendael.     My 

15  Lord  Duke  drank  it  with  rather  a  sickly  smile.  The  aides-de- 
camp were  present ;  and  Henry  Esmond  and  his  dear  young 
lord  were  together,  as  they  always  strove  to  be  when  duty 
would  permit :  they  were  over  against  the  table  where  the 
generals  were,   and   could  see   all  that  passed  pretty  well. 

20  Frank  laughed  at  my  Lord  Duke's  glum  face :  the  affair  of 
Wynendael,  and  the  Captain-(j!enerars  conduct  to  Webb, 
had  been  the  talk  of  the  whole  army.  When  his  Highness 
spoke,  and  gave  —  "  Le  vainqueur°  de  Wynendael ;  son  armee 
et  sa  victoire,"  adding,  "qui  nous  font  diner  a  Lille  aujour- 

25  d'huy"  —  there  was  a  great  cheer  through  the  hall;  for  Mr. 
Webb's  bravery,  generosity,  and  very  weaknesses  of  char- 
acter  caused   him   to   be   beloved   in   the   army. 

"Like  Hector,  handsome,  and  like  Paris,  brave  i"  whispers 
Frank  Castlewood.     "A  Venus,  an  elderly  Venus,  couldn't 

30  refuse  him  a  i)ippin.  Stand  up,  Harry.  See,  we  aredrinking 
the  army  of  Wynendael.  Ramillies  is  nothing  to  it.  Huz- 
zay !  huzzay !" 

At  this  very  time,  and  just  after  our  general  had  made  his 
acknowledgment,  some  one  brought  in  an  l^]nglish  Gazette  — 

35  and  was  passing  it  from  hand  to  liand  down  the  table.  Offi- 
cers were  eag(;r  enough  to  read  it ;  mothers  and  sisters  at 
home  must  have  sickened  over  it.  There  scarce  came  out  a 
Gazette  for  six  years  that  did  not  tell  of  some  heroick  death 
or  some  brilliant  achievement. 


HENRY   ESMOND  SOS 

"Here  it  is  —  Action  of  Wynendael  —  here  you  are, 
General/'  says  Frank,  seizing  hold  of  the  little  dingy  paper 
that  soldiers  loved  to  read  so;  and,  scrambling  over  from 
our  bench,  he  went  to  where  the  General  sat,  who  knew 
him,  and  had  seen  many  a  time  at  his  table  his  laughing,  5 
handsome  face,  which  everybody  loved  who  saw.  The 
generals  in  their  great  perrucjues  made  way  for  him.  He 
handed  the  paper  over  General  Dohna's  buff  coat  to  our 
General  on  the  opposite  side. 

He  came  hobbling  back,   and  blushing  at  his  feat:    "I  ic 
tliought  he'd  like  it,  Harry,"  the  young  fellow  whispered. 
''Didn't   I   Hke  to  read  my  name   after   Ramillies,   in   the 
London  Gazette  f  —  Viscount  Castlewood  serving  a  volunteer 
1  say,  what's  yonder?" 

Mr.   Webb,   reading  the   Gazette,   looked   very   strange  —  15 
slapped  it  down  on  the  table  —  then  sprung  up  in  his  place, 
and  began  to  —  "Will  your  Highness  please  to " 

His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  here  jumped  up  too  — 
"There's  some  mistake,  m}'  dear  General  Webb." 

"Your  Grace  had  best  rectify  it,"  says  Mr.  Webb,  holding  20 
out  the  letter ;  but  he  was  five  off  his  Grace  the  Prince-Duke, 
who,  besides,  was  higher  than  the  General  (being  seated 
with  the  Prince  of  Savoy,  the  Electoral  Prince  of  Hanover, 
and  the  envoys  of  Prussia  and  Denmark,  under  a  baldaquin), 
and  Webb  could  not  reach  him,  tall  as  he  was.  25 

"Stay,"  says  he,  wdth  a  smile,  as  if  catching  at  some  idea, 
and  then,  with  a  perfect  courtesy,  drawing  his  sword,  he 
ran  the  Gazette  through  with  the  point,  and  said,  "Permit 
me  to  hand  it  to  your  Grace." 

The  Duke  looked  very  black.     "Take  it,"  says  he,  to  his  30 
Master  of  the  Horse,  who  was  waiting  behind  him. 

The  Lieutenant-General  made  a  very  low  bow,  and  retired 
and  finished  his  glass.  The  Gazette  in  which  Mr.  Cardon- 
nel,  the  Duke's  secretary,  gave  an  account  of  the  victory  of 
Wynendael,  mentioned  ]\Ir.  Webb's  name,  but  gave  the  sole  35 
praise  and  conduct  of  the  action  to  the  Duke's  favourite, 
Mr.  Cadogan. 

There  was  no  little  talk  and  excitement  occasioned  by  this 
strange  behaviour  of  General  Webb,  who  had  almost  drawn 


304  HENRY   ESMOND 

a  sword  upon  the  Commander-in-Chief;  but  the  General, 
after  the  first  outbreak  of  his  anger,  mastered  it  outwardly 
altogether;  and,  by  his  subsequent  behaviour,  had  the 
satisfaction  of  even  more  angering  the  Commander-in-Chief, 
5  than  he  could  have  done  by  any  publick  exhibition  of  resent- 
ment. 

On  returning  to  his  quarters,  and  consulting  with  his  chief 
adviser,  Mr.  Esmond,  who  was  now  entirely  in  the  General's 
confidence,  and  treated  by  him  as  a  friend,  and  almost  a- 
10  son,  Mr.  Webb  writ  a  letter  to  his  Grace  the  Commander-in- 
Chief,  in  which  he  said  :  — 

"Your  Grace  must  be  aware  that  the  sudden  perusal  of  the 
London  Gazette,  in  which  your  Grace's  secretary,  ]\Ir.  Cardon- 
nel,  hath  mentioned  Major-General  Cadogan's  name,  as  the 

15  officer  commanding  in  the  late  action  of  Wynendael,  must 
have  caused  a  feeling  of  anything  but  pleasure  to  the  General 
who  fought  that  action. 

''Your  Grace  must  be  aware  that  Mr.  Cadogan  was  not 
even  present  at  the  battle,  tliough  he  arrived  with  squadrons 

20  of  Horse  at  its  close,  and  put  himself  under  the  command  of 
his  superior  officer.  And  as  the  result  of  the  battle  of  Wy- 
nendael, in  which  Lieutenant-General  Webb  had  the  good 
fortune  to  command,  was  the  capture  of  Lille,  the  relief  of 
Brussels,  then  invested  by  the  enemy  under  the  Elector  of 

25  Bavaria,  the  restoration  of  the  great  cities  of  Ghent  and 
Bruges,  of  which  the  enemy  (by  treason  within  the  walls) 
had  got  possession  in  the  previous  year:  Mr.  Webb  cannot 
consent  to  forgo  the  honours  of  such  a  success  and  service, 
for  the  benefit  of  Mr.  Cadogan,  or  any  other  i)erson. 

30  "  As  soon  as  the  military  operations  of  the  year  are  over, 
Lieutenant-General  Webb  will  requc^st  permission  to  leave 
the  army,  and  return  to  his  place  in  Parliament,  where  he 
gives  notice  to  his  Oace  the  Commander-in-Chief,  that  he 
shall  lay  his  case  before  the  House  of  Commons,  the  country, 

35  and  her  Majesty  the  Queen. 

"J:{y  his  ejigerness  to  rectify  that  false  statement  of  the 
Gazelle,  which  had  been  written  })y  his  (trace's  secretary, 
Mr.  Cardonnel,  Mr.  Weljb,  not  being  able  to  reach  his  Grace 


HENRY   ESMOND  305 

the  Comn)ander-in-Chief  on  account  of  the  gentlemen  seated 
between  them,  placed  the  paper  containing  the  false  state- 
ment on  his  sword,  so  that  it  might  more  readily  arrive  in  the 
hands  of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  who  surely  would 
wish  to  do  justice  to  every  officer  of  his  army.  5 

"  Mr.  Webb  knows  his  duty  too  well  to  think  of  insub- 
ordination to  his  superior  officer,  or  of  using  his  sword  in  a 
campaign  against  any  but  the  enemies  of  her  Majesty.  He 
solicits  permission  to  return  to  England  immediately  the 
military  duties  will  permit,  and  take  with  him  to  England  10 
Captain  Esmond,  of  his  regiment,  who  acted  as  his  aide-de- 
camj),  and  was  present  during  the  entire  action,  and  noted 
by  his  watch  the  time  when  Mr.  Gadogan  arrived  at  its  close." 

The  Gommander-in-Ghief  could  not  but  grant  this  per- 
mission, nor  could  he  take  notice  of  Webb's  letter,  though  15 
it  was  couched  in  terms  the  most  insulting.  Half  the  army 
believed  that  the  cities  of  Ghent  ard  Bruges  were  given 
up  by  a  treason,  which  some  in  our  i  rmy  very  well  under- 
stood;  that  the  Gommander-in-Ghief  would  not  ha\e  re- 
lieved Lille  if  he  could  have  helped  himself;  that  he  would  20 
not  ha^T  fought  that  year  had  not  the  Prince  of  Savoy  forced 
him.  When  the  battle  once  began,  then,  for  his  own  renown, 
my  Lord  Marlborough  would  fight  as  no  man  in  the  world 
ever  fought  better;  and  no  bribe  on  earth  could  keep  him 
from  beating  the  enemy. ^  25 

^  Our  Grandfather's  hatred  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  appears  all 
through  his  account  of  these  campaigns.  He  alvvaj-s  persisted  that  the 
Duke  was  tlie  greatest  traitor  and  soldier  History  ever  told  of :  and 
declared  that  he  took  bribes  on  all  hands  during  the  war.  INIy  Lord 
Marquis  (for  so  we  may  call  him  here,  though  he  never  went  by  any 
other  name  than  Colonel  Esmond)  was  in  the  habit  of  telhng  many 
stories  which  he  did  not  set  down  in  his  memoirs,  and  which  he  had 
from  his  friend  the  Jesuit,  who  was  not  alv.ays  correctly  informed, 
and  wlio  persisted  that  Marlborough  was  looking  for  a  bribe  of  two 
millions  of  crowns  before  the  campaign  of  Ramillies. 

And  our  Grandmother  used  to  tell  us  children  that  on  his  first  pre- 
sentation to  my  Lord  Duke,  the  Duke  turned  his  back  upon  my 
Grandfather ;  and  said  to  the  Duchess,  who  told  my  lady  dowager  at  , 
Chelsea,  who  afterwards  told  Colonel  Esmond,  —  "Tom  Esmond's  bas- 
tard has  been  to  my  levee  :  he  has  the  hang-dog  look  of  his  rogue  of  a 
father  "  —  an  expression  which  my  Grandfather  never  forgave.     He 


306  HENRY   ESMOND 

But  the  matter  was  taken  up  by  the  subordinates;  and 
half  the  army  might  have  been  by  the  ears,  if  the  quarrel 
had  not  been  stopped.  General  Cadogan  sent  an  in- 
timation to  General  Webb  to  say  that  he  was  ready 
5  if  Webb  liked,  and  would  meet  him.  This  was  a  kind 
of  invitation  our  stout  old  general  was  always  too  ready 
to  accept,  and  'twas  with  great  difficulty  w^e  got  the  General 
to  reply  that  he  had  no  c^uarrel  with  Mr.  Cadogan,  who  had 
behaved  with  perfect  gallantry,  but  only  with  those  at  head- 

10  quarters,  who  had  beUed  him.  Mr.  Cardonnel  offered 
General  Webb  reparation ;  IMr.  Webb  said  he  had  a  cane 
at  the  service  of  jNIr.  Cardonnel,  and  the  only  satisfaction  he 
wanted  from  him  was  one  he  was  not  hkely  to  get,  namely, 
the  truth.     The  officers  in  our  staff  of  Webb's,  and  those 

15  in  the  immediate  suite  of  the  General,  were  ready  to  come 
to  blows:  and  hence  arose  the  only  affair  in  which  Mr. 
Esmond  ever  engaged  as  principal,  and  that  was  from  a 
revengeful  wish  to  wi'je  off  an  old  injury. 

My  Lord  Mohun,  vho  had  a  troop  in  Lord  Macclesfield's 

20  regiment  of  the  Horse  Guards,  rode  this  campaign  with  the 
Duke.  He  had  sunk  by  this  time  to  the  very  worst  reputa- 
tion ;  he  had  had  ano;^her  fatal  duel  in  Spain ;  he  had  married, 
and  forsaken  his  wife;  he  was  a  gam}:)ler,  a  profligate,  and 
debauchee.     He    joined    just    before    Oudenarde :     and,    as 

25  Esmond  feared,  as  soon  as  Frank  Castlewood  heard  of  his 
arrival,  Frank  was  for  seeking  him  out,  and  killing  him. 
The  wound  my  lord  got  at  Oudenarde  prevented  .their  meet- 
ing, but  that  was  nearly  healed,  and  Mr.  Esmond  trembled 
daily  lest  any  chance  should  bring  his  boy  and  this  known 

30  assassin  together.     They  met  at  the  mess-table  of  Handy- 
side's  regiment  at  Lihe ;   the  officer  commanding  not  knowing  ' 
of  the  feud  l)etween  the  two  noblemen. 

Ivsmond  had  not  seen  the  hateful  handsome  face  of  Mohun 
for  nine  years,   since  they  had  met  on  that  fatal  night   in 

35  Leicester  Field.  It  was  degraded  with  crime  and  passion 
now ;    it   wore   the   anxious  look  of  a  man   who   has  three 

was  as  constant  in  his  dislikes  as  in  his  attachments  :  and  exceethngiy 
partial  to  Webb,  whoso  side  he  took  against  the  more  celebrated 
\lv\\vrn\.     We  have  General  Webb's  portrait  now  at  Castlewood,  Va. 


HENRY   ESMOND  307 

deaths,  and  who  knows  how  many  hidden  shames,  and  lusts, 
and  crimes,  on  his  conscience.  He  bowed  with  a  sickly  low 
bow,  and  slunk  away  when  our  host  presented  us  round 
to  one  another.  Frank  Castlewood  had  not  known  him  till 
then,  so  changed  was  he.     He  knew  the  boy  well  enough.  5 

Twas  curious  to  look  at  the  two  —  especially  the  young 
man,  whose  face  flushed  up  when  he  heard  the  hated  name 
of  the  other;  and  who  said  in  his  bad  French  and  his  brave 
boyish  voice  —  "He  had  long  been  anxious  to  meet  my 
Lord  i\Iohun."  The  other  only  bowed  and  moved  away  10 
from  him.  To  do  him  justice,  he  wished  to  have  no  quarrel 
with  the  lad. 

Esmond  put  himself  between  them  at  table.     "D it," 

says  Frank,   "why  do  you  put  yourself  in  the  place  of  a 
man  who  is  above  you  in  degree  ?     ]\Iy  Lord  Mohun  should  15 
walk  after  me.     I  want  to  sit  by  my  Lord  Mohun." 

Esmond  whispered  to  Lord  Mohun,  that  Frank  was  hurt 
in  the  leg  at  Oudenarde ;  and  besought  the  other  to  be  quiet. 
Quiet  enough  he  was  for  some  time ;  disregarding  the  many 
!;aunts  which  young  Castlewood  flung  at  him,  until  after  20 
several  healths,  when  my  Lord  Mohun  got  to  be  rather  in 
liquor. 

"Will  you  go  away,  my  lord?"  Mr.  Esmond  said  to  him, 
imploring  him  to  quit  the  table. 

"No,  by  G ,"   says  my  Lord  Mohun.      "I'll  not  go  25 

away  for  any  man;"  he  was  quite  flushed  with  wine  by  this 
time. 

The  talk  got  round  to  the  affairs  of  3^esterday.  Webb 
had  offered  to  challenge  the  Commander-in-Chief :  Webb 
had  been  ill-used :  Webb  was  the  bravest,  handsomest,  30 
vainest  man  in  the  army.  Lord  Mohun  did  not  know  tliat 
Esmond  was  Webb's  aide-de-camp.  He  began  to  tell  some 
stories  against  the  General;  which,  from  t'other  side  of 
Esmond,  young  Castlewood  contradicted. 

"I  can't  bear  any  more  of  this,"  says  my  Lord  IMohun.  35 

"Nor  can  I,  my  lord,"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  starting  up. 
"The  story  my  Lord  Mohun  has  told  respecting  General  Webb 
is  false,  gentlemen  —  false,  I  repeat,"  and  making  a  low  bow 
to  Lord  Mohun,  and  without  a  single  word  more,  Esmond 


308  HENRY   ESMOND 

got  up  and  left  the  dining-room.  These  affairs  were  commorv 
enough  among  the  mihtary  of  those  days.  There  was  a 
garden  behind  the  house,  and  all  the  party  turned  instantly 
into  it :  and  the  two  gentlemen's  coats  were  off  and  their 
5  points  engaged  within  two  minutes  after  Esmond's  words 
had  been  spoken.  If  Captain  Esmond  had  put  Mohun 
out  of  the  world,  as  he  might,  a  villain  would  have  been 
punished  and  spared  further  villanies  —  but  who  is  one  man 
to  punish  another?     I  declare^  upon  my  honour  that  my 

10  only  thought  vfas  to  prevent  Lord  ]\Iohun  from  mischief 
with  Frank,  and  the  end  of  this  meeting  was,  that  after  half 
a  dozen  passes  my  lord  went  home  with  a  hurt  which  pre- 
vented him  from  lifting  his  right  arm  for  three  months. 
"Oh,    Harry!    why  didn't  you  kill  the  villain?"  young 

15  Castlewood  asked.  "I  caji't  walk  witliout  a  crutch:  but  I 
could  have  met  him  on  horseback  with  sword  and  pistol." 
But  Harry  Esmond  said,  ''  'Twas  best  to  have  no  man's 
life  on  one's  conscience,  not  even  that  villain's;''  and  this 
affair,    which    did   not   occupy   three   minutes,    being   over, 

20  the  gentlemen  went  back  to  their  wine,  and  my  Lord  JMohun 
to  his  quarters,  where  he  was  laid  up  with  a  fever  which  had 
spared  mischief  had  it  proved  fatal.  And  very  soon  after 
this  affair  Harry  Esmond  and  his  general  left  the  camp  for 
London ;     whither   a   certain   reputation   had   preceded   the 

23  (Japtain,  for  my  Lady  Castlewood  of  Chelsea  received  him,  as 
if  he  had  been  a  conquering  hero.  She  gave  a  great  dinner 
to  Mr.  Webl),  where  the  General's  chair  was  crowned  with 
laurels;  and  her  ladyship  called  Esmond's  health  in  a  toast, 
to  which  my  kind  general  was  graciously  pleased  to  bear  the 

30  stroiig(!st  testimony :  and  took  down  a  mob  of  at  least  forty 
coaches  to  cheer  our  general  as  he  came  out  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  day  when  he  received  the  thanks  of  Parlia- 
ment for  his  action.  The  mob  huzzaed  and  applauded  him, 
as  well  as  the  fine  company :    it  was  splendid  to  see  him 

35  waving  his  hat,  and  bowing,  and  laying  his  hand  upon  his 
Order  of  (Jenerosity.  He  introduced  Mr.  I']smond  to  Mr. 
St.  John  and  the  Uight  Honouralile  Robert  Harley,  Esquire, 
as  he  came  out  of  the  House  walking  l)etvveen  them;  and 
was    pleased    to    make    many    flattering    observations    re- 


HENRY   ESMOND  309 

garding    Mr.   Esmond's    behaviour    during    the    three    last 
campaigns. 

Mr.  fct.  John  (who  had  the  most  winning  presence  of  any 
man  I  ever  saw,  excepting  always  my  peerless  young  Frank 
Castlewood)  said  he  had  heard  of  Mr.  Esmond  before  from  5 
Captain  Steele,  and  how  he  had  helped  Mr.  Addison  to  wTite 
his  famous  poem  of  the  "Campaign." 

"  'Tis  as  great  an  achievement  as  the  victory  of  Blenheim 
itself,"  Mr.  ^Harley  said,  who  was  famous  as  a  judge  and 
patron  of  letters,  and  so  perhaps  it  may  be  —  though  for  my  10 
part  I  think  there  are  twenty  beautiful  lines,  but  all  the  rest 
is  commonplace,  and  Mr.  Addison's  hymn  worth  a  thousand 
such  poems. 

All  the  town  was  indignant  at  my  Lord  Duke's  unjust 
treatment  of  General  Webb,  and  applauded  the  vote  of  15 
thanks  which  the  House  of  Commons  gave  to  the  General 
for  his  victory  at  Wynendael.  'Tis  certain  that  the  capture 
of  Lille  was  the  consequence  of  that  ludvy  achievement,  and 
the  humiliation  of  the  old  French  king,  who  was  said  to  suffer 
more  at  the  loss  of  this  great  city,  than  from  any  of  the  former  20 
victories  our  troops  had  won  over  him.  And,  I  think,  no 
small  part  of  Mr.  Webb's  exultation  at  his  victory  arose  from 
the  idea  that  Marlborough  had  been  disappointed  of  a  great 
brii^e  the  French  king  had  promised  him,  should  the  siege 
be  raised.  The  very  sum  of  money  offered  to  him  was  men-  25 
tioned  by  the  Duke's  enemies ;  and  honest  Mr.  Webb  chuckled 
at  the  notion  not  only  of  beating  the  French,  but  of  beating 
Marlborough  too,  and  intercepting  a  convoy  of  three  millions 
of  French  crowns,  that  w^ere  on  their  way  to  the  General- 
issimo's insatiable  pockets.  When  the  General's  lady  went  3a 
to  the  Queen's  drawing-room,  all  the  Tory  women  crowded 
round  her  with  congratulations,  and  made  her  a  train  greater 
than  the  Duchess  of  I\Iarlborough's  own.  Feasts  were  given 
to  the  General  by  all  the  chiefs  of  the  Tory  part}',  who 
vaunted  him  as  the  Duke's  ecfual  in  military  skill;  and  per-  35 
haps  used  the  worthy  soldier  as  their  instrument,  whilst 
he  thought  they  were  but  acknowledging  his  merits  as  a 
commander.  As  the  General's  aide-de-camp,  and  favourite 
officer,  Mr.  Esmond  came  in  for  a  share  of  his  chief's  popu- 


310  HENRY   ESMOND 

larity,  and  was  presented  to  her  Majesty,  and  advanced  to 
the  rank  of  Lieutenant-Colonel,  at  the  request  of  his  grateful 
chief. 

We  may  be  sure  there  was  one  family  in  which  any  good 
5  fortune  that  happened  to  Esmond,  caused  such  a  sincere  pride 
and  pleasure,  that  he,  for  his  part,  was  thankful  he  could 
make  them  so  happy.  With  these  fond  friends,  Blenheim  and 
Oudenarde  seemed  to  be  mere  trifling  incidents  of  the  war ; 
and  Wynendael  was  its  crowning  victory.     Espiond's  mis- 

lo  tress  never  tired  to  hear  accounts  of  the  battle ;  and  I  think 
General  Webb's  lady  grew  jealous  of  her,  for  the  General 
was  for  ever  at  Kensington,  and  talking  on  that  delightful 
theme.  As  for  his  aide-de-camp,  though,  no  doubt,  Esmond's 
own  natural  vanity  was  pleased  at  the  little  share  of  reputa- 

15  tion  which  his  good  fortune  had  won  him,  yet  it  was  chiefly 
precious  to  him  (he  may  say  so,  now  that  he  hath  long  since 
outlived  it)  because  it  pleased  his  mistress,  and,  above  all, 
because  Beatrix  valued  it. 

As  for  the  old  dowager  of  Chelsea,  never  was  an  old  woman 

20  in  all  England  more  delighted  nor  more  gracious  than  she. 
Esmond  had  his  quarters  in  her  ladyship's  house,  where  the 
domesticks  were  instructed  to  consider  him  as  their  master. 
She  bade  him  give  entertainments,  of  which  she  defrayed  the 
charges,  and  was  charmed  when  his  guests  were  carried  away 

25  tipsy  in  their  coaches.  She  must  have  his  picture  taken ;  and 
accordingly  he  was  painted  by  Mr.  Jervas,  in  his  red  coat, 
and  smiling  upon  a  bomb-shell,  which  was  bursting  at  a 
corner  of  the  piece.  She  \'owed  that  unless  he  made  a  great 
match,  she  should  never  die  easy,  and  was  for  ever  bringing 

30  young  ladies  to  Chelsea,  with  pretty  faces  and  pretty  fortunes, 
at  the  disposal  of  the  Colonel.  He  smiled  to  think  how  times 
were  altered  with  him,' and  of  the  early  days  in  his  father's 
lifetime,  when  a  trembling  page  he  stood  before  her,  with  her 
ladyship's  basin   and  ewer,   or  crouched  in  her  coach-stc}). 

35  The  only  fault  she  found  with  him  was  that  he  was  more 
sober  than  an  Esmond  ought  to  be ;  and  would  neither  be 
carried  to  bed  by  his  valet,  nor  lose  his  heart  to  any  beauty, 
whether  of  St.  James's  or  Co  vent  Garden. 

What  is  the  meaning  of  fidelity  in  love,  and  whence  the 


HENRY   ESMOND  311 

birth  of  it?  Tis  a  state  of  mind  that  men  fall  into,  and 
depending  on  the  man  rather  than  the  woman.  We  love 
being  in  love,  that's  the  truth  on't.  If  we  had  not  met  Joan, 
we  should  have  met  Kate,  and  adored  her.  We  know  our 
mistresses  are  no  better  than  many  other  women,  nor  no  5 
prettier,  nor  no  wiser,  nor  no  wittier.  'Tis  not  for  these 
reasons  we  love  a  woman,  or  for  any  special  quality  or  charm 
I  know  of;  we  might  as  well  demand  that  a  lady  should  be  the 
tallest  woman  in  the  world,  like  the  Shropshire  giantess,^  as 
that  she  should  be  a  paragon  in  any  other  character,  before  10 
we  began  to  love  her.  Esmond's  mistress  had  a  thousand 
faults  beside  her  charms :  he  knew  both  perfectly  well ;  she 
was  imperious,  she  was  light-minded,  she  was  flighty,  she  was 
false,  she  had  no  reverence  in  her  character ;  she  was  in 
everything,  even  in  beauty,  the  contrast  of  her  mother,  who  15 
was  the  most  devoted  and  the  least  selfish  of  women.  Well, 
from  the  very  first  moment  he  saw  her  on  the  stairs  at  Wal- 
cote,  Esmond  knew  he  loved  Beatrix.  There  might  be  better 
women  —  he  wanted  that  one.  He  cared  for  none  other. 
W^as  it  because  she  was  gloriously  beautiful?  Beautiful  as  20 
she  was,  he  hath  heard  people  say  a  score  of  times  in  their 
compan}^,  that  Beatrix's  mother  looked  as  young,  and  was 
the  handsomer  of  the  two.  Why  did  her  voice  thrill  in  his 
ear  so  ?  She  could  not  sing  near  so  well  as  Xicolini  or  Mrs. 
Tof ts^ ;  nay,  she  sang  out  of  tune,  and  yet  he  liked  to  hear  her  25 
better  than  St.  CeciHa.°  She  had  not  a  finer  complexion 
than  Mrs.  Steele  (Dick's  wife,  whom  he  had  now  got,  and 
who  ruled  poor  Dick  with  a  rod  of  pickle) ,  and  yet  to  see  her 
dazzled  Esmond ;  he  would  shut  his  eyes,  and  the  thought  of 
her  dazzled  him  all  the  same.  She  was  brilliant  and  hvely  30 
in  talk,  but  not  so  incomparably  witty  as  her  mother,  who 
when  she  was  cheerful,  said  the  finest  things;  but  yet  to 
hear  her,  and  to  be  with  her,  was  Esmond's  greatest  pleasure. 
Days  passed  away  between  him  and  these  ladies,  he  scarce 
knew  how.  He  poured  his  heart  out  to  them,  so. as  he  never  35 
could  in  any  other  company,  where  he  hath  generally  passed 

^  'Tis  not  thus  looman  loves  :  Col.  E.  hath  Qwued  to  this  folly  for  a 
score  of  women  besides.  —  R."^ 


312  HENRY   ESMOND 

for  being  moody,  or  supercilious  and  silent.  This  society 
was  more  delightful  than  that  of  the  greatest  wits  to  liim 
May  Heaven  pardon  him  the  lies  he  told  the  dowager  at 
Chelsea,  in  order  to  get  a  pretext  for  going  away  to  Ken- 
5  sington ;  the  business  at  the  Ordnance  which  he  invented ; 
the  interviews  with  his  General,  the  courts  and  statesmen's 
levees  which  he  didn't  frequent  and  describe :  who  wore  a 
new  suit  on  Sunday  at  Saint  James's  or  at  the  Queen's  birth- 
day;   how  many  coaches  filled  the  street  at  Mr.  Harley's 

10  levee ;  how  many  bottles  he  had  had  the  honour  to  drink 
over-night  with  ^Ir.  St.  John  at  the  Cocoa  Tree,  or  at  the 
Garter  with  ]\Ir,  Walpole  and  Mr.  Steele. 

Mistress  Beatrix  Esmond  had  been  a  dozen  times  on  the 
point  of  making  great  matches,  so  the  Court  scandal  said; 

rs  but  for  his  part  Esmond  never  "would  believe  the  stories 
against  her ;  and  came  back,  after  three  years'  absence  from 
her,  not  so  frantick  as  he  had  been  perhaps,  but  still  hungering 
after  her  and  no  other,  still  hopeful,  still  kneeling,  with  his 
heart  in  his  hand  for  the  young  lady  to  take.     We  were  now 

20  got  to  1709.  She  was  near  twenty-two  years  old,  and  three 
years  at  Court,  and  without  a  husband. 

"  'Tis  not  for  want  of  being  asked,"  Lady  Castlewood  said, 
looking  into  Esmond's  heart,  as  she  could,  with  that  per- 
ceptiveness  affection  gives.     "But  she  will  make  no  mean 

25  match,  Harry :  she  will  not  marry  as  I  would  have  her ;  the 
person  whom  I  should  like  to  call  my  son,  and  Henry  Esmond 
knows  who  that  is,  is  best  served  by  my  not  pressing  his 
claim.  Beatrix  is  so  wilful,  that  what  I  would  urge  on  her, 
she  would  be  sure  to  resist.     The  man  who  would  marry  her 

30  will  not  be  happy  with  her,  unless  he  be  a  great  person,  and 
can  put  her  in  a  great  position.  Beatrix  loves  admiration 
more  than  love;  and  longs,  beyond  all  things,  for  command. 
Why  should  a  mother  si)eak  so  of  her  chilcl?  You  are  my 
son,  too,  Harry.    You  should  know  the  truth  about  your  sister. 

35  I  thought  you  might  cure  yourself  of  your  passion,"  my  lady 
added,  fondly.     "Other  people  can  cure  themselves  of  that 

'  And,  indeed,  so  was  his  to  them,  a  thousand  thousand  times  more 
charming,  for  where  was  his  equal  ?  —  R. 


HENRY   ESMOND  313 

folly^  you  know.  But  I  see  you  are  still  as  infatuated  as 
e'/er.  AMien  we  read  your  name  in  the  Gazette,  I  pleaded 
for  you,  my  poor  boy.  Poor  boy,  indeed  !  You  are  growing 
a  grave  old  gentleman  now,  and  I  am  an  old  woman.  She 
hkes  your  fame  well  enough,  and  she  hkes  your  person.  She  5 
says  you  have  wit,  and  fire,  and  good-breeding,  and  are  more 
natural  than  the  fine  gentlemen  of  the  Court.  But  this  is 
not  enough.  She  wants  a  commander-in-chief,  and  not  a 
colonel.  Were  a  duke  to  ask  her,  she  would  leave  an  earl 
whom  she  had  promised.  I  told  you  so  before.  I  know  not  10 
how  my  poor  girl  is  so  worldly." 

"Well,"  says  Esmond,  ''a  man  can  but  give  his  best  and  his 
all.  She  has  that  from  me.  What  little  reputation  I  have 
won,  I  swear  I  cared  for  it  but  because  I  thought  Beatrix 
would  be  pleased  with  it.  What  care  I  to  be  a  colonel  or  a  15 
general  ?  Think  you  'twill  matter  a  few  score  years  hence, 
what  our  foolish  honours  to-day  are?  I  would  have  had  a 
little  fame,  that  she  might  wear  it  in  her  hat.  If  I  had  any- 
thing better,  I  would  endow  her  wdth  it.  If  she  wants  my 
life,  I  would  give  it  her.  If  she  marries  another,  I  will  say  20 
God  bless  him.  I  make  no  boast,  nor  no  comj^laint.  I  think 
my  fidelity  is  folly,  perhaps.  But  so  it  is.  I  cannot  help 
myself.  I  love  her.  You  are  a  thousand  times  better :  the 
fondest,  the  fairest,  the  dearest,  of  women.  Sure,  dear  lady, 
I  see  all  Beatrix's  faults  as  well  as  3^ou  do.  But  she  is  my  25 
fate.  'Tis  endurable.  I  shall  not  die  for  not  ha\ang  her. 
I  think  I  should  be  no  hapj^ier,  if  I  won  her.  Que  voulez- 
vous°?    as  my  Lady  of  Chelsea  would  say.     Je  Taime." 

"I  wish  she  would  have  you,"  said  Harry's  fond  mistress, 
giving  a  hand  to  him.  He  kissed  the  fair  hand  ('twas  the  30 
prettiest  dimpled  little  hand  in  the  world,  and  my  Lady 
Castlewood,  though  now  almost  forty  A^ears  old,  did  not  look 
to  be  within  ten  years  of  her  age).  He  kissed  and  kept  her 
fair  hand,  as  they  talked  together. 

"Why,  "says  he,  "should  she  hear  me?     She  knows  what  35 
I  would  say.     Far  or  near  she  knows  I'm  her  slave.     I  have 
sold  myself  for  nothing,  it  may  be.     Well,  'tis  the  price  I 
choose  to  take.     I  am  worth  nothing,  or  I  am  worth  aU." 

"You  are  such  a  treasure,"  Esmond's  mistress  was  pleased 


314  HENRY   ESMOND 

to  say,  "that  the  woman  who  has  your  love,  shouldn't  change 
it  away  against  a  kingdom,  I  think.  I  am  a  country-bred 
woman,  and  cannot  say  but  the  ambitions  of  the  town  seem 
mean  to  me.     I  never  was  awe-stricken  by  my  Lad}^  Duchess's 

5  rank  and  finery,  or  afraid,"  she  added,  with  a  sly  laugh,  "of 
anything  but  her  temper.  I  hear  of  Court  ladies  who  pine 
because  her  Majesty  looks  cold  on  them;  and  great  noble- 
men who  would  give  a  limb  that  they  might  wear  a  garter  on 
the  other.     This  worldhness,  which  I  can't  comprehend,  was 

10  born  with  Beatrix,  who,  on  the  first  day  of  her  waiting,  was  a 
perfect  courtier.  We  are  like  sisters,  and  she  the  elder  sister, 
somehow.  She  tells  me  I  have  a  mean  spirit.  I  laugh,  and 
say  she  adores  a  coach-and-six.  I  cannot  reason  her  out 
of  her  ambition.     'Tis  natural  to  her,  as  to  me  to  love  quiet, 

15  and  be  indifferent  about  rank  and  riches.  What  are  they, 
I^arry?  and  for  how  long  do  they  last?  Our  home  is  not 
here."  She  smiled  as  she  spoke,  and  looked  like  an  angel 
that  was  only  on  earth  on  a  visit.  "Our  home  is  where  the 
just  are,  and  where  our  sins  and  sorrows  enter  not.     My 

20  father  used  to  rebuke  me,  and  say  that  I  was  too  hopeful 
about  Heaven.  But  I  cannot  help  my  nature,  and  grow 
obstinate  as  I  grow  to  be  an  old  woman;  and  as  I  love  my 
children  so,  sure  our  Father  loves  us  with  a  thousand  and  a 
thousand  times  greater  love.     It  must  be  that  we  shall  meet 

25  yonder,  and  be  happy.  Yes,  you  —  and  my  children,  and 
my  dear  lord.  Do  you  know,  Harry,  since  his  death,  it  has 
always  seemed  to  me  as  if  his  love  came  back  to  me,  and  that 
we  are  parted  no  more.  Perhaps  he  is  here  now,  Harry  — 
I  think  he  is.     Forgiven  I  am  sure  he  is :  even  Mr.  Atterbury 

30  absoh'ed  him,  and  he  died  forgiving.  Oh,  what  a  noble  heart 
he  had !  How  generous  he  was !  I  was  but  fifteen,  and  a 
child  when  he  married  me.  How  good  he  was  to  stoop  to 
me!  He  was  always  good  to  the  poor  and  humble."  She 
stopped,  then  presently,  with  a  peculiar  expression,  as  if  her 

35  eyes  were  looking  into  Heaven,  and  saw  my  lord  there,  she 
smiled,  and  gave  a  little  laugh.  "I  laugh  to  see  you,  sir,'^ 
she  says;  "when  you  come,  it  seems  as  if  you  never  were 
away."  One  may  put  her  words  down,  and  remember  them, 
but  how  describe  her  sweet  tones,  sweeter  than  musick? 


HENRY   ESMOND  315 

My  young  lord  did  not  come  home  at  the  end  of  the  cam- 
paign, and  wrote  that  he  was  kept  at  Bruxelles  on  miUtary 
duty.  Indeed,  I  beheve  he  was  engaged  in  laying  siege  to  a 
certain  lady,  who  was  of  the  suite  of  Madame  de  Soissons,  the 
Prince  of  Savoy's  mother,  who°  was  just  dead,  and  who,  like  5 
the  Flemish  fortresses,  was  taken  and  retaken  a  great  number 
of  times  during  the  war,  and  occupied  by  French,  English, 
and  Imperialists.  Of  course,  Mr.  Esmond  did  not  think  fit 
to  enlighten  Lady  Castlewood  regarding  the  young  scape- 
grace's doings:  nor  had  he  said  a  word  about  the  affair  with  10 
Lord  Mohun,  knowing  how  abhorrent  that  man's  name  was  to 
his  mistress.  Frank  did  not  waste  much  time  or  money  on 
pen  and  ink;  and,  when  Harry  came  home  with  his  general, 
only  writ  two  lines  to  his  mother,  to  say  his  wound  in  the  leg 
was  almost  healed,  that  he  would  keep  his  coming  of  age  next  15 
year,  —  that  the  duty  aforesaid  would  keep  him  at  Bruxelles, 
and  that  Cousin  Harry  would  tell  all  the  news. 

But  from  Bruxelles,  knowing  how  the  Lady  Castlewood 
always  liked  to  have  a  letter  about  the  famous  29th  of  Decem- 
ber, my  lord  writ  her  a  long  and  full  one,  and  in  this  he  must  have  20 
described  the  affair  with  Mohun  ;  for  when  Mr.  Esmond  came 
to  \4sit  his  mistress  one  day,  early  in  the  new  year,  to  his  great 
wonderment,  she  and  her  daughter  both  came  up  and  saluted 
him,  and  after  them  the  dowager  of  Chelsea,  too,  whose  chair- 
man had  just  brought  her  ladyship  from  her  village  to  Ken-  25 
sington  across  the  fields.  After  this  honour,  I  say,  from  the 
two  ladies  of  Castlewood,  the  dowager  came  forward  in  great 
state,  with  her  grand  tall  head-dress  of  King  James's  reign, 
that  she  never  forsook,  and  said,  '"Cousin  Henry,  all  our 
family  have  met ;  and  we  thank  you,  cousin,  for  your  noble  30 
conduct  towards  the  head  of  our  house."  And  pointing  to 
her  blushing  cheek,  she  made  Mr.  Esmond  aware  that  he  was 
to  enjoy  the  rapture  of  an  embrace  there.  Having  saluted 
one  cheek,  she  turned  to  him  the  other.  "Cousin  Harry," 
said  both  the  other  ladies,  in  a  little  chorus,  "we  thank  you  35 
for  your  noble  conduct ;"  and  then  Harry  became  aware  that 
the  story  of  the  Lille  affair  had  come  to  his  kinswomen's  ears. 
It  pleased  him  to  hear  them  all  saluting  him  as  one  of  their 
family. 


316  HENRY  ESMOND 

The  tables  of  the  dining-room  were  laid  for  a  great  enter- 
tainment ;  and  the  ladies  were  in  gala  dresses  —  my  Lady 
of  Chelsea  in  her  highest  tour°  my  Lady  Viscountess  out  oi 
black,  and  looking  fair  and  happy,  a  ravir ;  °  and  the  ^laid  of 
5  Honour  attired  with  that  splendour  which  naturally  distin- 
guished her,  and  wearing  on  her  beautful  breast  the  French 
officer's  star,  which  Frank  had  sent  home  after  Ramillies. 
"You  see,  'tis  a  gala  day  with  us,"  says  she,  glancing  down 
to  the  star  complacently,  "and  we  have  our  orders  on.     Does 

10  not  mamma  look  charming?  'Twas^I  dressed  her!"  In- 
deed, Esmond's  dear  mistress,  blushing  as  he  looked  at  her, 
with  her  beautiful  fair  hair  and  an  elegant  dress,  according  to 
the  mode,  appeared  to  have  the  shape  and  complexion  of  a 
girl  of  twenty. 

15  On  the  table  was  a  fine  sword,  with  a  red  velvet  scabbard, 
and  a  beautiful  chased  silver  handle,  with  a  blue  ribbon  for 
a  sword-knot.  "What  is  this?"  says  the  Captain,  going  up 
to  look  at  this  pretty  piece. 

Mrs.  Beatrix  advanced  towards  it.     "Kneel  down,"  says 

20  she  :  "we  dub  3^ou  our  knight  with  this"  —  and  she  waved  the 
sword  over  his  head  —  "my  Lady  Dowager  hath  given  the 
sword;  and  I  give  the  rih)bon,  and  mamma  hath  sewn  on 
the  fringe." 

"  Put  the  sword  on  him,  Beatrix,"  says  her  m(5ther.     "  You 

25  are  our  knight,  Harry  —  our  true  knight.  Take  a  mother's 
thanks  and  prayers  for  defending  her  son,  my  dear,  dear 
friend."  She  could  say  no  more,  and  even  the  dowager  was 
affected,  for  a  couple  of  rebellious  tears  made  sad  marks 
down  tliose  wrinkled  old  roses  which  Esmond  had  just  been 

30  allowed  to  salute. 

"We  had  a  letter  from  dearest  Frank,"  his  mother  said, 
"three  days  since,  whilst  you  were  on  your  visit  to  your 
friend  Captain  Steele,  at  PLampton.  He  told  us  all  that  you 
had  done,  and  how  nobly  you  had  put  yourself  between  him 

35  and  that  —  that  wretch." 

"And  I  adopt  you  from  this  day,"  says  the  dowager; 
"and  I  wish  I  was  richer,  for  your  sake,  son  Esmond,"  she 
added,  with  a  wave  of  her  hand;  and  as  iMr.  PlsTncnd  duti- 
fully went  down  on  his  knee  before  her  ladyship,  she  cast  her 


HENRY   ESMOND  317 

eyes  up  to  the  ceiling  (the  gilt  chandelier,  a.nd  the  twelve 
wax  candles  in  it,  for  the  party  was  numerous),  and  invoked 
a  blessing  from  that  quarter  upon  the  newly-adopted  son. 

"Dear  Frank,"  says  the  other  Viscountess,  "how  fond  he 
is  of  his  military  profession !     He  is  studying  fortification  5 
very  hard.     I  wish  he  were  here.     We  shall  keep  liis  coming 
of  age  at  Castle  wood  next  year." 

"If  the  campaign  permit  us,"  says  Mr.  Esmond. 

"I  am  never  afraid,  when  he  is  with  you,"  cries  the  boy's 
mother.     "I  am  sure  my  Henry  will  always  defend  him."        10 

"  But  there  will  be  a  peace  before  next  year ;  we  know  it  for 
certain,"  cries  the  Maid  of  Honour.  "Lord  Marlborough 
will  be  dismissed;  and  that  horrible  Duchess  turned  out  of 
all  her  places.  Her  Majesty  won't  speak  to  her  now.  Did 
you  see  her  at  Bushy,  Harry?  she  is  furious,  and  she  ranges  15 
about  the  park  like  a  lioness,  and  tears  people's  eyes  out." 

"And  the  Princess  Anne  will  send  for  somebody,"  says 
my  Lady  of  Chelsea,  taking  out  her  medal,  and  kissing  it. 

"  Did  you  see  the  King  at  Oudenarde,  Harry?"  his  mistress 
asked.     She  was  a  staunch  Jacobite,   and  would  no  more  20 
have  thought  of  denying  her  king  than  her  God. 

"I  saw  the  young  Hanoverian  only,"  Harry  said:  "The 
Chevalier  de  St.  George." 

"The   King,    sir,    the   Kjng!"   said   the   ladies   and   Miss 
Beatrix;   and  she  clapped  her  pretty  hands,  and  cried  "Vive  25 
le  Roy.°" 

By  this  time  there  came  a  thundering  knock,  that  drove 
in  the  doors  of  the  house  almost.  It  was  three  o'clock,  and 
the  company  were  arriving;  and  presently  the  servant 
announced   Captain   Steele   and   his  lady.  30 

Captain  and  Mrs.  Steele,  who  were  the  first  to  arrive,  had 
driven  to  Kensington  from  their  country-house,  the  Hovel 
at  Hamjjton  Wick,  "Not  from  our  mansion  in  Bloomsbury 
Square,"  as  Mrs.  Steele  took  care  to  inform  the  ladies.  In- 
deed, Harry  had  ridden  away  from  Hampton  that  very  35 
morning,  leaving  the  couple  by  the  ears;  for,  from  the 
chamber  where  he  lay,  in  a  bed  that  was  none  of  the  cleanest, 
and  kept  awake  by  the  company  which  he  had  in  his  own 
bed,  and  the  quarrel  which  was  going  on  in  the  next  room. 


318  HEXRY   ESMOND 

he  could  hear  both  night  and  morning  the  curtain  lecture 
which  Mrs.  Steele  was  in  the  habit  of  administering  to  poor 
Dick. 

At  night,  it  did  not  matter  so  much  for  the  culprit ;  Dick 
5  was  fuddled,  and  when  in  that  way  no  scolding  could  inter- 
rupt his. benevolence.  Mr.  Esmond  could  hear  him  coaxing 
and  speaking  in  that  maudlin  manner,  which  punch  and 
claret  produce,  to  his  beloved  Prue,  and  beseeching  her 
to  remember  that  there  was  a  distiwisht  officer  ithe  rex  roob° 

10  who  would  overhear  her.  She  went  on,  nevertheless,  calling 
him  a  drunken  'wretch,  and  was  only  interrupted  in  her 
hf^rangues  by  the  Captain's  snoring. 

In  the  morning,  the  unhappy  victim  awoke  to  a  headache 
and  consciousness,  and  the  dialogue  of  the  night  was  resumed. 

15  "Why  do  you  bring  captains  home  to  dinner  when  there's 
not  a  guinea  in  the  house  ?  How  am  I  to  gi^'e  dinners  when 
you  leave  me  without  a  shilling?  How  am  I  to  go  trape- 
sing to  Kensington  in  my  yellow  satin  sack  before  all  the 
fine  company?     I've  nothing  fit  to  put  on;   I  never  have;" 

20  and  so  the  dispute  went  on  —  Mr.  Esmond  interrupting  the 
talk  when  it  seemed  to  be  growing  too  intimate  by  blowing 
his  nose  as  loudly  as  ever  he  could,  at  the  sound  of  which 
trumpet  there  came  a  lull.  But  Dick  was  charming,  though 
his  wife  was  odious,  and  'twas  to  give  Mr.  Steele  pleasure 

25  that  the  ladies  of  Castlewood,  who  were  ladies  of  no  small 
fashion,  invited  Mrs.  Steele. 

Besides  the  Captain  and  his  lady,  there  was  a  great  and 
notable  assemblage  of  company ;  my  Lady  of  Chelsea  hav- 
ing sent  her  lacqueys  and  liveries  to  aid  the  modest  attend- 

30  ance  at  Kensington.  There  was  Lieutenant-General  Webb, 
Harry's  kind  patron,  of  whom  the  dowager  took  possession, 
and  who  resplended  in  velvet  and  gold  lace ;  there  was 
Harry's  new  acf|uaintance,  the  Right  Honourable  Henry 
St.  John,  Esquire,  the  (leneral's  kinsman,  who  was  charmed 

35  with  the  Lady  Castlewood,  even  more  than  with  her  daughter ; 
there  was  one  of  the  greatest  noblemen  in  the  kingdom, 
the  Scots  Duke  of  Hamilton,  just  created  Duke  of  l^randon 
in  England ;  and  two  other  noble  lords  of  the  Tor}^  pjirty, 
my  Lord  Ashburnham,  and  another  I  have  forgot;   and  for 


HEXRY   ESMOND  319 

ladies,  her  Grace  the  Duchess  of  Ormonde  and  her  daughters, 
the  Lady  i\Iary  and  the  Lady  Betty,  the  former  one  of 
Mistress  Beatrix's  colleagues  in  waiting  on  the  Queen. 

''What  a  party  of  Tories!"  whispered  Captain  Steele  to 
Esmond,  as  we  were  assembled  in  the  parlour  before  dinner.  5 
Indeed,  all  the  company  present,  save  Steele,  were  of  that 
faction. 

i\Ir.  St.  John  made  his  special  compliments  to  Mrs.  Steele, 
and  so  charmed  her,  that  she  declared  she  would  have  Steele 
a  Tory  too.  10 

"Or  will  you  have  me  a  Whig?"  says  Mr.  St.  John.  "I 
think,  madam,  you  could  convert  a  man  to  anything." 

"If  Mr.  St.  John  ever  comes  to  Bloornsbury  Square  I  will 
teach  him  what  I  know,"  says  Mrs.  Steele,  dropping  her 
handsome  eves.     "  Do  vou  know  Bloomsburv  Square  ?  "  15 

"Do  I  know  the  Mall?  Do  I  know  the  Opera?  Do  I 
know  the  reigning  toast?  Why,  Bloomsbury  is  the  very 
height  of  the  mode,"  says  Mr.  St.  John.  "  Tis  rus  m  iirbe° 
You  have  gardens  all  the  way  to  Hampstead,°  and  palaces 
round  about  you  —  Southampton  House  and  Montague  20 
House." 

"Where  vou  wretches  go  and  fight  duels,"  cries  Mrs. 
Steele. 

"Of  which  the  ladies  are  the  cause  !"  says  her  entertainer. 
"]Madam,  is  Dick  a  good  swordsman?  How  charming  the  25 
Tatler°  is !  We  all  recognised  your  portrait  in  the  49th 
number,  and  I  have  been  dyhig  to  know  you  ever  since  I 
read  it.  'Aspasia  must  be  allowed  to  be  the  first  of  the 
beauteous  order  of  love.'  Doth  not  the  passage  run  so? 
'  In  this  accomplished  lad}"  love  is  the  constant  effect,  though  30 
it  is  never  the  design;  yet  though  her  mien  carries  much 
more  invitation  than  command,  to  behold  her  is  an  im- 
mediate check  to  loose  behaviour,  and  to  love  her  is  a  liberal 
education.'" 

"Oh,   indeed!"  says  Mrs.   Steele,   who  did  not   seem   to  35 
understand  a  word  of  what  the  gentleman  was  saying. 

"  Who  could  fail  to  be  accomplished  under  such  a  mistress  ?  " 
says  Mr.  St.  John,  still  gallant  and  bowing. 

"Mistress!   upon  my  word,  sir!"  cries  the  lady.     "If  you 


320  HENRY   ESMOND 

mean  me,  sir,  I  would  have  you  know  that  I  am  the  Captain ^s 
wife." 

"Sure  we  all  know  it,"  answers  Mr.  St.  John,  keeping  hia 

countenance    very   gravely;     and    Steele   broke   in,    saying, 

5  "  Twas  not  about  ]\Irs.  Steele  I  writ  that  paper  —  though  I 

am  sure  she  is  worthy  of  any  compliment  I  can  pay  her  — 

but  of  the  Lady  Elizabeth  Hastings." 

"I   always   thought   that    paper    was    Mr.    Congreve's," 
cries  Mr.  St.  John,  showing  that  he  knew  more  about  the 
10  subject  than  he  pretended  to  ]\Ir.  Steele,  and  who  was  the 
original  ]\Ir.  Bickerstaff3°  drew. 

"Tom  Boxer  said  so  in  his  Observator.     But  Tom's  oracle 
is  often  making  blunders/'  cries  Steele. 

"Mr.  Boxer  and  my  husband  were  friends  once,  and  when 

15  the  Captain  was  ill  with  the  fever  no  man  could  be  kinder 

than  Mr.  Boxer,  who  used  to  come  to  his  bed-side  every 

day,  and  actually  brought  Dr.  Arbuthnot  who  cured  him," 

whispered  Mrs.  Steele. 

"  ndeed,  madam!     How  very  interesting,"  says  Mr.  St. 
20  jo^jn. 

"But  when  the  Captain's  last  comedy  came  out,  Mr. 
Boxer  took  no  notice  of  it,  —  you  know  he  is  Mr.  Congreve's 
man,  and  won't  ever  give  a  word  to  the  other  house,  —  and 
this  made  my  -husband  angry." 
25  "Oh!  Mr.  Boxer  is  Mr.  Congreve's  man!"  says  Mr.  St. 
John. 

"Mr.  Congreve  has  wit  enough  of  his  own,"  cries  out  Mr. 
Steele.  "No  one  ever  heard  me  grudge  him  or  any  other 
man  his  share." 
30  "I  hear  Mr.  Addison  is  equally  famous  as  a  wit  and  a  poet," 
says  Mr.  St.  John.  "Is  it  true  that  his  hand  is  to  be  found 
in  your  Tatler,  Mr.  Steele?" 

"Whether  'tis  the  sublime  or  the  humorous,  no  man  can 
come  near  him,"  cries  Steele. 
35  "A  fig,  Dick,  for  your  Mr.  Addison!"  cries  out  his  lady: 
"a  gentleman  who  gives  himself  such  airs  and  holds  his  head 
so  high  now.  I  hoi)e  your  ladyship  thinks  as  I  do :  I  can't 
bear  those  very  fair  men  with  white  eyelashes  —  a  black 
man  for  me."     (All  the  black°  men  at  table  aj^plauded,  and 


HENRY   ESMOND  321 

made  Mrs.  Steele  a  bow  for  this  compliment.)  "As  for  this 
Mr.  Addison/'  she  went  on,  ''he  comes  to  dine  with  the 
Captain  sometimes,  never  says  a  word  to  me,  and  then  they 
walk  upstairs,  both  tipsy,  to  a  dish  of  tea.  I  remember  your 
Mr.  Addison  when  he  had  but  one  coat  to  his  back,  and  that  5 
with  a  patch  at  the  elbow." 

''Indeed  —  a  patch  at  the  elbow!  You  interest  me," 
says  Mr.  St.  John.  "Tis  charming  to  hear  of  one  man  of 
letters  from  the  charming  wife  of  another." 

"Law!     I  could  tell  you  ever  so  much  about  'em,"  con-  lo 
tinues  the  voluble  lady.     "What  do  you  think  the  Captain 
has  got  now  ?  —  a  little  hunchback  fellow  —  a  little  hop- 
o'-my-thumb  creature  that  he  calls  a  poet  —  a  little  popish 
bratV' 

"Hush,  there  are  two  in  the  room,"  whispers  her  compan-  15 
ion. 

"Well,  I  call  him  popish  because  his  name  is  Pope,°" 
says  the  lady.  "  'Tis  only  my  joking  way.  And  this  little 
dwarf  of  a  fellow  has  wrote°  a  pastoral  poem  —  all  about 
shepherds  and  shepherdesses,  you  know."  20 

"A  shepherd  should  have  a  little  crook,"  says  my  mistress, 
laughing  from  her  end  of  the  table :  on  which  Mrs.  Steele 
said,  "she  did  not  know,  but  the  Captain  brought  home  this 
queer  little  creature  when  she  was  in  bed  with  her  first  boy, 
and  it  was  a  mercy  he  had  come  no  sooner ;  and  Dick  raved  25 
about  his  genus,  and  was  always  raving  about  some  nonsense 
or  other." 

"Which  of  the  Tatlers  do  you  prefer,  Mrs.  Steele?"  asked 
i\Ir.  St.  John. 

"I  never  read  but  one,  and  think  it  all  a  pack  of  rubbish,  3° 
sir,"  says  the  lady.     "Such  stuff  about  Bickerstaffe,   and 
Distaff,  and  Quarterstaff,°  as  it  all  is !     There's  the  Captain 
going  on  still  with  the  Burgundy  —  I  know  he'll  be  tipsy 
before  he  stops  —  Captain  Steele  !" 

"I  drink  to  your  ej^es,  my  dear,"  says  the  Captain,  who  35 
seemed  to  think  his  wife  charming,  and  to  receive  as  genuine 
all  the  satirick  compliments  which  Mr.  St.  John  paid  her. 

All  this  while  the  Maid  of  Honour  had  been  trying  to  get 
Mr.  Esmond  to  talk,  and  no  doubt  voted  him  a  dull  fellow. 


322  HENRY   ESMOND 

For,  by  some  mistake,  just  as  he  was  going  to  pop  into  the 
vacant  place,  he  was  placed  far  away  from  Beatrix's  chair, 
who  sate  between  his  Grace  and  my  Lord  Ashburnham, 
and  shrugged  her  lovely  white  shoulders,  and  cast  a  look  as 
5  if  to  say,  "Pity  me,''  to  her  cousin.  My  Lord  Duke  and  his 
young  neighbour  were  presently  in  a  very  animated  and  close 
conversation.  Mrs.  Beatrix  could  no  more  help  using  her 
eyes  than  the  sun  can  help  shining,  and  setting  those  it  shines 
on  a-burning.  By  the  time  the  first  course  was  done  the 
10  dinner  seemed  long  to  Esmond :  by  the  time  the  soup  came 
he  fancied  they  must  have  been  hours  at  table :  and  as  for 
the  sweets  and  jellies,  he  thought  they  never  would  be  done. 

At  length  the  ladies  rose,  Beatrix  throwing  a  Parthian 
glance°  at  her  duke  as  she  retreated;  a  fresh  bottle  and 
15  glasses  were  fetched,  and  toasts  were  called.  Mr.  St.  John 
asked  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  and  the  company 
to  drink  to  the  health  of  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Brandon. 
Another  lord  gave  General  Webb's  health,  "and  may  he  get 
the  command  the  bravest  officer  in  the  world  deserves." 
20  Mr.  Webb  thanked  the  company,  complimented  his  aide-de- 
camp, and  fought  his  famous  battle  over  again, 

''II  est  fatiguant,°"  whispers  Mr.  St.  John,  "avec  sa  trom- 
pette  de  Wynendael." 

Captain  Steele,  who  was  not  of  our  side,  loyally  gave  the 
^5  health  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  the  greatest  general 
of  the  age. 

"I  drink  to  the  greatest  general  with  all  my  heart,"  says 
Mr.  Webb;  "there  can  be  no  gainsaying  that  character  of 
him.  My  glass  goes  to  the  General,  and  not  to  the  Duke,  Mr. 
-'o  Steele."  And  the  stout  old  gentleman  emptied  his  bumper; 
to  which  Dick  replied  by  filling  and  emptying  a  pair  of 
brimmers,  one  for  the  General  and  one  for  the  Duke. 

And  now  his  (ilrace  of  Hamilton,  rising  up,  with  flashing 

eyes  (we  had  all  been  di-inking  pretty  freely),  proposed  a 

~35  toast  to  the  lovely,  to  the  incomparable  Mrs.  Beatrix  Esmond  ; 

we   all   drank   it   with   cheers,   and   my   Lord   Ashburnliam 

especially,  with  a  shout  of  enthusiasm. 

"What  a  i)ity  there  is  a  Duchess  of  Hamilton!"  whispers 
St.  John,  who  drank  more  wine  and  yet  was  more  steady 


HENRY   ESMOND  323 

than  most  of  the  others,  and  we  entered  the  drawing-room, 
where  the  ladies  were  at  their  tea.  As  for  poor  Dick,  we 
were  obhged  to  leave  him  alone  at  the  dining-table,  where 
he  was  hiccupping  out  the  lines  from  the  "  Campaign, '^ 
in  which  the  greatest  poet  had  celebrated  the  greatest  5 
general  in  the  world;  and  Harry  Esmond  found  him, 
half  an  hour  afterwards,  in  a  more  advanced  stage  of  liquor, 
and  weeping  about  the  treachery  of  Tom  Boxer. 

The   drawing-room  was  all   dark  to  poor   Harry,  in  spite 
of    the  grand   illumination.     Beatrix    scarce  spoke  to    him.  10 
When  my  Lord  Duke  went  away,  she  practised  upon  the 
next  in  rank,  and  phed  my  young  Lord  Ashburnham  with 
all  the  fire  of  her  eyes  and  the  fascinations  of  her  wit.     Most 
of  the  party  were  set  to  cards,  and  Mr.  St.  John,  after  yawning 
in  the  face  of  Mrs.  Steele,  whom  he  did  not  care  to  pursue  15 
any  more,  and  talking  in  his  most  brilliant,  animated  way  to 
Lady  Castlewood,   whom   he   pronounced   to   be   beautiful, 
of  a  far  higher  order  of  beauty  than  her  daughter,  presently 
took  his  leave,  and  went  his  way.     The  rest  of  the  company 
speedily  followed,  my  Lord  Ashburnham  the  last,  throwing  20 
fiery  glances  at  the  smiling  young  temptress,  who  had  be- 
witched more  hearts  than  his  in  her  thrall. 

Xo  doubt,  as  a  kinsman  of  the  house,  Mr.  Esmond  thought 
fit  to  be  the  last  of  all  in  it;  he  remained  after  the  coaches 
had  rolled  away,  —  after  his  dowager  aunt's  chair  and  flam-  25 
beaux  had  marched  off  in  the  darkness  towards  Chelsea,  and 
the  town's-people  had  gone  to  bed,  who  had  been  drawn 
into  the  square  to  gape  at  the  unusual  assemblage  of  chairs 
and  chariots,  lacqueys  and  torchmen.  The  poor  mean 
wretch  lingered  yet  for  a  few  minutes,  to  see  whether  the  30 
girl  would  vouchsafe  him  a  smile,  or  a  parting  word  of  con- 
solation. But  her  enthusiasm  of  the  morning  was  quite 
died  out,  or  she  chose  to  be  in  a  different  mood.  She  fell  to 
joking  about  the  dowdy  appearance  of  Lady  Betty,  and 
mimicked  the  vulgarity  of  Mrs.  Steele;  and  then  she  put  35 
up  her  httle  hand  to  her  mouth  and  yawned,  lighted  a  taper, 
and  shrugged  her  shoulders,  and  dropping  Mr.  Esmond  a 
saucy  curtsey,  sailed  off  to  bed. 

"The  day  began  so  well,  Henry,  that  I  had  hoped  it  might 


324  HEXRY   ESMOND 

have  ended  better,"  was  all  the  consolation  that  poor  Esmond's 
fond  mistress  could  give  him  ;  and  as  he  trudged  home  through 
the  dark  alone,  he  thought,  with  bitter  rage  in  his  heart,  and  a 
feeling  of  almost  revolt  against  the  sacrifice  he  had  made  :  — ■ 
5  "She  would  have  me,"  thought  he,  "had  I  but  a  name  to 
give  her.  But  for  my  promise  to  her  father,  I  might  have 
my  rank  and  my  mistress  too." 

I  suppose  a  man's  vanity  is  stronger  than  any  other  passion 
in  him;  for  I  blush,  even  now,  as  I  recall  the  humiliation  of 

lo  those  distant  days,  the  memory  of  which  still  smarts,  though 
the  fever  of  baulked  desire  has  passed  away  more  than  a 
score  of  years  ago.  When  the  writer's  descendants  come 
to  read  this  memoir,  I  wonder  will  they  have  lived  to  expe- 
rience  a  similar  defeat   and  shame?     Will  they  ever  have 

15  knelt  to  a  woman,  who  has  listened  to  them,  and  played 
with  them,  and  laughed  at  them,  —  who  beckoning  them 
with  lures  and  caresses,  and  with  Yes  smiling  from  her  eyes, 
has  tricked  them  on  to  their  knees,  and  turned  her  back,  and 
left  them?     All  this  shame,  Mr.  Esmond  had  to  undergo; 

20  and  he  submitted,  and  revolted,  and  presently  came  crouch- 
ing back  for  more. 

After  this  feste,  my  young  Lord  Ashburnham's  coach  was 
for  ever  rolling  in  and  out  of  Kensington  Square;  his  lady- 
mother  came  to  visit  Esmond's  mistress,  and  at  every  as- 

25  sembly  in  the  town,  wherever  the  Maid  of  Honour  made  her 
appearance,  you  might  be  pretty  sure  to  see  the  young  gentle- 
man in  a  new  suit  every  week,  and  decked  out  in  all  the  finery 
that  his  tailor  or  embroiderer  could  furnish  for  him.  My  lord 
was  for  ever  paying  Mr.  Esmond  compliments :   bidding  him 

30  to  dinner,  offering  him  horses  to  ride,  and  giving  him  a  thou- 
sand uncouth  marks  of  respect  and  good-will.  At  last,  one 
night  at  the  coffee-house,  whither  my  lord  came  considerably 
Hushed  and  excited  with  dririk,  he  rushes  up  to  Mr.  Esmond, 
and  cries  out  —  "Give  me  joy,  my  dearest  Colonel;    I  am 

35  the  happiest  of  men." 

"The  hai)piest  of  men  needs  no  dearest  colonel  to  give  him 
joy,"  says  Mr.  Esmond.  "What  is  the  cause  of  this  su- 
preme felicity?" 

"Haven't    vou   heard?"   says    he.      "Don't   you   know? 


HENRY   ESMOND  325 

I   thought  the  family   told   you   everything:    the    adorable 
Beatrix  hath  promised  to  be  mine." 

"What!"  cries  out  Mr.  Esmond,  who  had  spent  happy 
hours  with  Beatrix  that  very  morning,  —  had  writ  verses 
for  her,  that  she  had  sung  at  the  harpsichord.  5 

''  Yes,"  says  he ;  "I  waited  on  her  to-day.  I  saw  you  walk- 
ing towards  Knightsbridge,°  as  I  passed  in  my  coach  ;  and  she 
looked  so  lovely,  and  spoke  so  kind,  that  I  couldn't  help 
going  down  on  my  knees,  and  —  and  —  sure  I'm  the  happiest 
of  men  in  all  the  world;  and  I'm  very  young:  but  she  says  10 
I  shall  get  older :  and  you  know  I  shall  be  of  age  in  four 
months;  and  there's  very  little  difference  between  us;  and 
I'm  so  happy.  I  should  like  to  treat  the  company  to  som.e- 
thing.  Let  us  have  a  bottle  —  a  dozen  bottles  —  and  drink 
the  health  of  the  finest  woman  in  England."  /       15 

Esmond  left  the  young  lord  tossing  off  bumper  after  bum- 
per, and  strolled  away  to  Kensington  to  ask  whether  the 
news  was  true.  ^Twas  only  too  sure :  his  mistress's  sad,  ' 
compassionate  face  told  him  the  story ;  and  then  she  related 
what  particulars  of  it  she  knew,  and  how  my  young  lord  had  20 
made  his  offer,  half  an  hour  after  Esmond  went  away  that 
morning,  and  in  the  very  room  where  the  song  lay  yet  on  the 
harpsichord,  which  Esmond  had  writ,  and  they  had  sung 
together. 


BOOK  III 

CONTAINING  THE  END  OF  MR.  ESMOND'S  ADVENTURES 
IN  ENGLAND 


CHAPTER   I 

I   COME   TO    AN    END    OF    MY    BATTLES    AND    BRUISES 

That  feverish  desire  to  gain  a  little  reputation  which 
Esmond  had  had,  left  him  now  perhaps  that  he  had  attained 
some  portion  of  his  wish,  and  the  great  motive  -of  his  am- 
bition was  over.  His  desire  for  military  honour  was  that 
it  might  raise  him  in  Beatrix's  eyes.  'Twas  next  to  nobility  5 
and  wealth  the  only  kind  of  rank  she  valued.  It  was  the 
stake  quickest  won  or  lost  too ;  for  law  is  a  very  long  game 
that  requires  a  life  to  practise ;  and  to  be  distinguished  in 
letters  or  the  church  would  not  have  forwarded  the  poor 
gentleman's  plans  in  the  least.  So  he  had  no  suit  to  play  10 
but  the  red  one,°  and  he  played  it;  and  this,  in  truth,  was 
the  reason  of  his  speedy  promotion  ;  for  he  exposed  himself 
more  than  most  gentlemen  do,  and  risked  more  to  win  more. 
Is  he  the  only  man  that  hath  set  his  life  against  a  stake  which 
may  be  not  worth  the  winning?  Another  risks  his  life  (and  15 
his  honour,  too,  sometimes)  against  a  bundle  of  bank-notes, 
or  a  3^ard  of  blue  ribbon, °  or  a  seat  in  Parhament;  and  some 
for  the  mere  pleasure  and  excitement  of  the  sport ;  as  a  field 
of  a  hundred  huntsmen  will  do,  each  out-bawling  and  out- 
galloping the  other  at  the  tail  of  a  dirty  fox,  that  is  to  be  the  20 
prize  of  the  foremost  happy  conqueror. 

When  he  heard  this  news  of  Beatrix's  engagement  in  mar- 
riage. Colonel  Esmond  knocked  under  to  his  fate,  and  resolved 
to  surrender  his  sword,  that  could  win  him  nothing  now  he 
cared  for;  and  in  this  dismal  frame  of  mind  he  determined  25 
to  retire  from  the  regiment,  to  the  great  delight  of  the  captain 
next  in  rank  to  him,  who  happened  to  be  a  young  gentleman 
of  good  fortune,  w^ho.eagerlv  paid  Mr.  Esmond  a  thousand 
guineas  for  his  majority  in  Webb's  regiment,  and  was  knocked 
on  the  head  the  next  campaign.     Perhaps  Esmond   would  3a 

329' 


330  HENRY    ESMOND 

not  have  been  sorry  to  share  his  fate.  He  was  more  the 
Knight  of  the  Woful  Countenance  than  ever  he  had  been. 
His  moodiness  must  have  made  him  perfectly  odious  to  his 
fj'iends  under  the  tents,  who  hke  a  jolly  fellow,  and  laugh  at 

5  a  melancholy  warrior  always  sighing  after  Dulcinea°  at  home. 

Both  the  ladies  of  Castlewood  approved  of  Mr.  Esmond 

quitting  the  army,  and  his  kind  general  coincided  in  his  wish 

of  retirement,  and  helped  in  the  transfer  of  his  commission,, 

which  brought  a  pretty  sum  into  his  pocket.     But  when  the' 

10  Commander-in-Chief  came  home,  and  was  forced,  in  spite  of 
himself,  to  appoint  Lieutenant-General  Webb  to  the  com- 
mand of  a  division  of  the  army  in  Flanders,  the  Lieutenant- 
Ceneral  prayed  Colonel  Esmond  so  urgently  to  be  his  aidc-de-  ■ 
camp  and  military  secretar}^,  that  Esmond  could  not  resist  his 

15  kind  patron's  entreaties,  and  again  took  the  field,  not  attached 
to  any  regiment,  but  under  Webb's  orders.  What  must  hiive 
been  the  continued  agonies  of  fears  ^  and  apprehensions  which 
racked  the  gentle  breasts  of  wives  and  matrons  in  t'lose  dread- 
ful days,  when  every  Gazette  brought  accounts  of  deaths  and 

2o  battles,  and  when,  the  present  anxiety  over,  and  the  beloved 
person  escaped,  the  doubt  still  remained  that  a  battle  might 
be  fought,  possibly,  of  which  the  next  Flanders  letter  would 
bring  the  account ;  so  they,  the  poor  tender  creatures,  had  to 
go  on  sickening  and  trembling  through  the  whole  campaign. 

25  Whatever  these  terrors  were  on  the  part  of  Esmond's  mistress 
(and  that  tenderest  of  women  must  have  felt  them  most 
keenly  for  both  her  sons,  as  she  called  them),  she  never  al- 
lowed them  outwardly  to  appear,  but  hid  her  apprehension 
as  she  did  her  charities  and  devotion.     'Twas  only  by  chance 

30  that  Esmond,  wandering  in  Kensington,  found  his  mistress 
coming  out  of  a  mean  cottage  there,  and  heard  that  she  hacj 
a  score  of  poor  retainers  whom  slie  visited  and  comforted  in 
their  sickness  and  poverty,  and  who  blessed  her  daily.  She 
attended  the  early  (;hurch  daily°  (though,  of  a  Sunday  espe- 

35  cially,  she  encouraged  and  advanced  all  sorts  of  cheerfulness 

and  irmocent  gaiety  in  her  little  household)  :   and  by  notes 

entered  into  a  tal)le-book  of  hers  at  this  time,  and  devotional 

compositions  writ  with  a  sweet  artless  fervour,  such  as  the 

1  What  indeed  ?    Psm.  xci.  2,  3,  7.  —  R.  E. 


HENRY   ESMOND  331 

ibest  divines  could  not  surpass,  showed  how  fond  her  heart 
was,  how  humble  and  pious  her  spirit,  what  panojs  of  appre- 
ihension  she  endured  silently,  and  with  what  a  faithful  reliance 
she  committed  the  care  of  those  she  loved  to  the  Awful 
Dispenser  of  death  and  life.  5 

As  for  her  ladyship  at  Chelsea,  Esmond's  newly-adopted 
mother,  she  was  now  of  an  age  when  the  danger  of  any  second 
party  doth  not  disturb  the  rest  much.  She  cared  for  trumps° 
more  than  for  most  things  in  life.  She  was  firm  enough  in 
her  own  faith,  but  no  longer  very  bitter  against  ours.  She  had  lo 
a  very  good-natured,  easy  French  director, °  Monsieur  Gauthier 
by  name,  who  was  a  gentleman  of  the  world,  and  would  take 
a  hand  at  cards  with  Dean  Atterbury,  my  lady's  neighbour 
at  Chelsea,  and  was  well  with  all  the  High  Church  party. 
No  doubt  Monsieur  Gauthier  knew  w^hat  Esmond's  peculiar  15 
position  was,  for  he  corresponded  with  Holt,  and  always 
treated  Colonel  Esmond  with  particular  respect  and  kindness ; 
but  for  good  reasons  the  Colonel  and  the  Abbe  never  spoke 
on  this  matter  together,  and  so  they  remained  perfect  good 
friends.  20 

All  the  frequenters  of  my  Lady  of  Chelsea's  house  were  of 
the  Tory  and  High  Church  party.  Madam  Beatrix  was  as 
frantick  about  the  King  as  her  elderly  kinswoman :  she  wore 
his  picture  on  her  heart;  she  had  a  piece  of  his  hair;  she 
vowed  he  was  the  most  injured,  and  gallant,  and  accom-  25 
plished,  and  unfortunate,  and  beautiful  of  princes.  Steele, 
who  quarrelled  with  very  many  of  his  Tory  friends,  but  never 
with  Esmond,  used  to  tell  the  Colonel  that  his  kinswoman's 
house  was  a  rendezvous  of  Tory  intrigues ;  that  Gauthier  was 
a  spy;  that  Atterbury  was  a  spy;  that  letters  were  con- 30 
stantly  going  frcii  that  house  to  the  Queen  at  St.  Germains; 
on  which  Esmond,  laughing,  would  reply,  that  they  used  to 
say  in  the  army  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  a  spy  too, 
and  as  much  in  correspondence  with  that  family  as  any 
Jesuit.  And  without  entering  very  eagerly  into  the  con-  35 
troversy,  Esmond  had  frankly  taken  the  side  of  his  family. 
It  seemed  to  him  that  King  James  the  Third  was  undoubtedly 
King  of  England  by  right :  and  at  his  sister's  death  it  would 
be  better  to  have  him  than  a  foreigner  over   us.     No  man 


332  HENRY   ESMOND 

admired  King  William  more ;  a  hero  and  a  conqueror,  the 
bravest,  justest,  wisest  of  men;  —  but  'twas  by  the  sword 
he  conquered  the  country,  and  held  and  governed  it  by  the 
very  same  right  that  the  great  Cromwell  held  it,  who  was 
5  truly  and  greatly  a  sovereign.  But  that  a  foreign  despot ick 
Prince,  out  of  Germany,  who  happened  to  be  descended 
from  King  James  the  First,  should  take  possession  of  this 
empire,  seemed  to  Mr.  Esmond  a  monstrous  injustice  —  at 
least,   every   Englishman'  had   a  right  to   protest,   and  the 

10  English  Prince,  the  heir-at-law,  the  first  of  all.  What  man 
of  spirit  with  such  a  cause  would  not  back  it  ?  What  man  of 
honour  with  such  a  crown  to  win  would  not  fight  for  it  ?  But 
that  race  was  destined.  That  Prince  had  himself  against  him, 
an  enemy  he  could  not  overcome.     He  never  dared  to  draw 

15  his  sword,  though  he  had  it.  He  let  his  chances  slip  by  as 
he  lay  in  the  lap  of  opera-girls,  or  snivelled  at  the  knees  of 
priests  asking  pardon ;  and  the  blood  of  heroes,  and  the 
devotedness  of  honest  hearts,  and  endurance,  courage,  fidel- 
ity, were  all  spent  for  him  in  vain. 

20  But  let  us  return  to  my  Lady  of  Chelsea,  who  when  her; 
son  Esmond  announced  to  her  ladyship  that  he  proposed  1 
to  make  the  ensuing  campaign,  took  leave  of  him  with  per- 
fect alacrity,  and  was  down  to  picquct  with  her  gentlewoman- 
before  he  had  well  quitted  the  room  on  his  last  visit.     "Tierce 

25  to  a  king,°"  were  the  last  words  he  ever  heard  her  say:  the 
game  of  life  was  pretty  nearly  over  for  the  good  lady,  and 
three  months  afterwards  she  took  to  her  bed,  where  she 
flickered  out  without  any  pain,  so  the  Abbe  Gauthier  wrote 
over  to  Mr.  Esmond,  then  with  his  general  on  the  frontier  of 

30  France.     The  Lady  Castlewood  was  with  her  at  her  ending, 

and  had  written  too,  out  these  letters  must  have  been  taken 

by  a  privateer  in  the  packet  that  brought  them ;  for  l<]sm()nd 

knew  nothing  of  their  contents  until  his  return  to  l*]ngland. 

My  Lady  Casthnvood  had  left  everything  to  Colonel  Es- 

35  mond,  "as  a  reparatioji  for  the  wrong  done  to  him;"  'twas 
writ  in  her  will.  But  her  fortune  was  not  much,  Tor  it  never 
had  been  large,  and  the  honest  Viscountess  had  w-sely  sunk 
most  of  the  mone>  she  had  upon  an  annuity  which  terminated 
with  her  life.     However,  there  was  the  house  and  furniture, 


HENRY  ESMOND  333 

plate,  and  pictures  at  Chelsea,  and  a  sum  of  money  lying 
at  her  merchant's  Sir  Josiah  Child,  which  altogether  would 
realize  a  sum  of  near  three  hundred  pounds  per  annum,  so 
that  Mr.  Esmond  found  himself,  if  not  rich,  at  least  easy  for 
life.  Likewise,  there  were  the  famous  diamonds  which  had  5 
been  said  to  be  worth  fabulous  sums,  though  the  goldsmith 
pronounced  they  w^ould  fetch  no  more  than  four  thousand 
pounds.  These  diamonds,  however,  Colonel  Esmond  re- 
served, having  a  special  use  for  them  :  but  the  Chelsea  house, 
plate,  goods,  etc.,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  articles  which  la 
he  kept  back,  were  sold  by  his  orders ;  and  the  sums  resulting 
from  the  sale  invested  in  the  publick  securities  so  as  to  reahse 
the  aforesaid  annual  income  of  £300. 

Having  now  something  to  leave,  he  made  a  will,   and  de- 
spatched it  home.      The  army  was  now  in  presence  of  the  15 
enem}-;    and   a   great   battle   expected   every   day.     Twas 
known  that  the  General-in-Chief  was  in  disgrace  and  the 
parties  at  home  strong  against  him ;  and  there  was  no  stroke 
this  great  and  resolute  player  would   not  venture  to  recall 
his  fortune  when  it  seemed  desperate.     Frank  Castlewood  20 
was  with  Colonel  Esmond;   his  general  having  gladly  taken 
the  young  nobleman  on  to  his  staff.     His  studies  of  forti- 
fications at  Bruxelies  were  over  by  this  time.     The  fort  he 
was  besieging  had  yielded,  I  believe,  and  my  lord  had  not 
only  marched  in  with  flying  colours,  but  marched  out  again.  25 
He  used  to  tell  his  boyish  wickednesses  with  admirable  hu- 
mour, and  was  the  most  charming  young  scapegrace  in  the 
army. 

Tis  needless  to  say  that  Colonel  Esmond  had  left  every 
penny  of  his  little  fortune  to  this  boy.  It  was  the  Colonel's  30 
firm  conviction  that  the  next  battle  would  put  an  end  to  him  : 
for  he  felt  aweary  of  the  sun,  and  quite  ready  to  bid  that  and 
the  earth  farewell.  Frank  would  not  listen  to  his  comrade's 
gloomy  forebodings,  but  swore  they  would  keep  his  birth- 
day at  Castlewood  that  autumn,  after  the  campaign.  He  35 
had  heard  of  the  engagement  at  homd.  "If  Prince  Eugene 
goes  to  London,"  says  Frank,  "and  Trix  can  get  hold  of 
him,  she'll  jilt  Ashburhham  for  his  Highness.  I  tell  you, 
she  used  to  make  eyes  at  the  Duke  of  ]\Iarlborough,  when 


334  HENRY    ESMOND 

she  was  only  fourteen  and  ogling  poor  little  Blandford.  1 
wouldn't  marry  her,  Harry,  no  not  if  her  eyes  were  twice  as 
big,  I'll  take  my  fun.  Til  enjo}^  for  the  next  three  j-ears 
every  possible  pleasure.  I'll  sow  my  wild  oats  then,  and 
5  marry  some  quiet,  steady,  modest,  sensible  Viscountess; 
hunt  my  harriers" ;  and  settle  down  at  Castlewood.  Perhaps 
I'll  represent  the  county  —  no,  damme,  you  shall  represent 
the  county.  You  have  the  brains  of  thie  family.  By  the 
Lord,  my  dear  old  Harry,  you  have  the  best  head  and  the 

10  kindest  heart  in  all  the  army ;  and  every  man  says  so  — 
and  when  the  Queen  dies,  and  the  King  comes  back,  why 
shouldn't  5^ou  go  to  the  House  of  Commons  and  be  a  Minister, 
and  be  made  a  peer,  and  that  sort  of  thing?  You  be  shot 
in  the  next  action  !     I  wager  a  dozen  of  Burgundy  you  are 

15  not  touched.  Mohun  is  well  of  his  wound.  He  is  always 
with  Corporal  John°  now.  As  soon  as  ever  I  see  his  ugly  face 
I'll  spit  in  it.  I  took  lessons  of  Father  —  of  Captain  Holtz 
at  Bruxelles.  What  a  man  that  is  !  He  knows  everything." 
Esm.ond  bade  Frank  have  a  care;   that  Father  Holt's  know- 

20  ledge  was  rather  dangerous;  not,  indeed,  knowing  as  yet 
how  far  the  Father  had  pushed  his  instructions  with  his 
young  pupil. 

The  Gazetteers  and  writers,  both  of  the  French  and  Eng- 
lish   side,    have    given    accounts    sufficient    of   that    bloody 

25  battle  of  Blarignies  or  Malplaquet,°  which  was  the  last  and 
the  hardest  earned  of  the  victories  of  the  great  Duke  of 
Marlborough.  In  that  tremendous  combat,  near  upon  two 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  men  were  engaged,  more  than 
thirty  thousand  of  whom  were  slain  or  wounded  (the  Allies 

30  lost  twice  as  many  men  as  thc}^  killed  of  the  French,  whom 
they  conquered)  :  and  this  dreadful  slaughter  very  likely 
took  place  because  a  great  general's  credit  was  shaken  at 
home,  and  he  thought  to  restore  it  by  a  victory.  If  such 
wore  the  motives  which  induced  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  to 

35  v(Miture  that  prtjdigious  stake,  and  desperately  sacrifice 
thirty  thousand  brave  lives,  so  that  he  might  figure  once 
more  in  a  (lazctte,  and  hold  his  places  and  pensions  a  little 
longer,  the  event  defeated  the  dreadful  and  selfish  design, 
for  the  victory  was  purchased  at  a  cost  which  no  nation. 


HENRY   ESMOND  335 

groedy  of  glory  as  it  may  be,  would  willingly  pay  for  any 
triumph.  The  gallantry  of  the  French  was  as  remarkable 
as  the  furious  bravery  of  their  assailants.  We  took  a  few 
score  of  their  flags,  and  a  few  pieces  of  their  artillery;  but 
we  left  twenty  thousand  of  the  bravest  soldiers  of  the  world  5 
round  about  the  intrenched  lines,  from  which  the  enerhy 
was  driven.  He  retreated  in  perfect  good  order ;  the  panic- 
spell  seemed  to  be  broke,  under  which  the  French  had  laboured 
ever  since  the  disaster  of  Hochsteclt° ;  and,  fighting  now  on 
the  threshold  of  their  country,  they  showed  an  heroick  10 
ardour  of  resistance,  such  as  had  never  met  us  in  the  course 
of  their  aggressive  war.  Had  the  battle  been  more  success- 
ful, the  conqueror  might  have  got  the  price  for  which  he 
waged  it.  As  it  was  (and  justly,  I  think),  the  party  adverse 
to  the  Duke  in  England  were  indignant  at  the  lavish  extra va-  15 
gance  of  slaughter,  and  demanded  more  eagerly  than  ever 
the  recall  of  a  chief,  whose  cupidity  and  desperation  might 
urge  him  further  still.  After  this  bloody  fight  of  Malplaquet, 
I  can  answer  for  it,  that  in  the  Dutch  quarters  and  our  own, 
and  amongst  the  very  regiments  and  commanders,  whose  20 
gallantry  was  most  conspicuous  upon  this  frightful  day  of 
carnage,  the  general  cry  was,  that  there  was  enough  of  the 
war.  The  French  were  driven  back  into  their  own  boundary, 
and  all  their  conquests  and  booty  of  Flanders  disgorged. 
As  for  the  Prince  of  Savoy,  with  whom  our  Commander-in-  25 
Chief,  for  reasons  of  his  own,  consorted  more  closely  than 
ever,  'twas  known  that  he  w^as  animated  not  merely  by  a 
pohtical  hatred,  but  by  personal  rage  against  the  old  French 
king :  the  Imperial  Generalissimo  never  forgot  the  slight° 
put  by  Lewis  upon  the  Abbe  de  Savoie ;  and  in  the  humilia-  2° 
tion  or  ruin  of  his  Most  Christian  Majesty,  the  Holy  Roman 
Emperor  °  found  his  account.  But  what  were  these  quarrels 
to  us,  the  free  citizens  of  England  and  Holland?  Despot 
as  he  was,  the  French  m.onarch  was  yet  the  chief  of  European 
civilisation,  more  venerable  in  his  age  and  misfortunes  than  35 
at  the  period  of  his  most  splendid  successes ;  whilst  his 
opponent  was  but  a  semi-barbarous  tyrant,  with  a  pillag- 
ing, murderous  horde  of  Croats  and  Pandours,°  composing  a 
half  of  his  army,  filhng  our  camp  with  their  strange  figures, 


336  HENRY   ESMOND 

bearded  like  the  miscreant  Turks  their  neighbours,  and  carry- 
ing into  Christian  warfare  their  native  heathen  habits  of 
rapine,  lust,  and  murder.  Why  should  the  best  blood  in 
England  and  France  be  shed  in  order  that  the  Holy 
5  Roman  and  Apostolic  master  of  these  rufhans  should  have 
his  revenge  over  the  Christian  king?  And  it  was  to  this 
end  we  were  fighting;  for  this  that  every  village  and  family 
in  England  was  deploring  the  death  of  beloved  sons  and 
fathers.     We  dared  not  speak  to  each  other,  even  at  table, 

10  of  Malplaquet,  so  frightful  were  the  gaps  left  in  our  army  by 
the  cannon  of  that  bloody  action.  Twas  heart-rending, 
for  an  officer  who  had  a  heart,  to  look  down  his  line  on  a 
parade-day  afterwards,  and  miss  hundreds  of  faces  of  com- 
rades —  humble  or  of  high  rank  —  that  had  gathered  but 

15  yesterday  full  of  courage  and  cheerfulness  round  the  torn 
and  blackened  flags.  Where  were  our  friends?  As  the 
great  Duke  reviewed  us,  riding  along  our  lines  with  his  fine 
suite  of  prancing  aides-de-camp  and  generals,  stopping  here 
and  there  to  thank  an  officer  with  those  eager  smiles  and 

20  bows,  of  which  his  Grace  was  always  lavish,  scarce  a  huzzah 
could  be  got  for  him,  though  Cadogan,  with  an  oath,  rode 

up    and    cried  —  ''D n    you,    why    don't    you    cheer?" 

But  the  men  had  no  heart  for  that :  not  one  of  them  but  was 
thinking,    "Where's    my    comrade?  —  where 's    my    brother 

25  that  fought  by  me,  or  my  dear  captain  that  led  me  yester- 
day?" 'Twas  the  most  gloomy  pageant  I  ever  looked  on; 
and  the  "Te  Deum,"  sung  by  our  chaplains,  the  most  woful 
and  dreary  satyre. 

Esmond's  general  added  one  more  to  the  many  marks  of 

30  honour  whicii  he  had  received  in  the  front  of  a  score  of  battles, 
and  got  a  wound  in  the  groin,  which  laid  Inm  on  his  back; 
and  you  may  be  sure  he  consoled  himself  by  abusing  the 
Commander-in-Chief,  as  he  lay  groaning :  —  "Corporal  John's 
as   fond   of   me,"   he   used   to   say,    "as   King    David    was 

35  of  (leneral  Uriah°;  and  so  he  always  gives  me  the  post  of 
danger."  He  j)ersisted,  to  liis  dying  day,  in  believing  that 
the  Duke  intended  he  should  be  beat  at  Wynendael,  and 
sent  him  i)urposely  wi(h  a  small  force,  hoj)ing  that  he  might 
be  knocked  on  the  head  there.     Esmond  and  Frank  Castle- 


HENRY   ESMOND  337 

wood  both  escaped  without  hurt,  though  the  division  which 
our  General  commanded  suffered  even  more  than  any  other, 
having  to  sustain  not  only  the  fury  of  the  enemy's  cannon- 
ade, which  was  very  hot  and  well  served,  but  the  furious 
and  repeated  charges  of  the  famous  Maison  du  Roy,  which  5 
we  had  to  receive  and  beat  off  again  and  again,  with  volleys 
of  shot  and  hedges  of  iron,  and  our  four  lines  of  musqueteers 
and  pikemen.  They  said  the  King  of  England  charged  us  no 
less  than  twelve  times  that  day,  along  with  the  French 
Household.  Esmond's  late  regiment.  General  Webb's  own  10 
Fusileers,  served  in  the  cUvision  which  their  colonel  com- 
manded. The  General  was  thrice  in  the  centre  of  the  square 
of  the  Fusileers,  calling  the  fire  at  the  French  charges ;  and, 
after  the  action,  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Berwick  sent  his 
compliments  to  his  old  regiment  and  their  colonel  for  their  15 
behaviour  on  the  field. 

We  drank  my  Lord  Castle  wood's  health  and  majority,  the 
25th   of   September,    the    army   being   then   before    Mons° : 
and  here  Colonel  Esmond  was  not  so  fortunate  as  he  had 
been  in  actions  much  more  dangerous,   and  was  hit  by  a  20 
spent  ball  just  above   the   place   where   his  former  wound 
was,    which   caused   the   old   wound   to   open   again,   fever, 
spitting  of  blood,  and  other  ugly  symptoms  to  ensue;    and, 
in  a  word,  brought  him  near  to  death's  door.     The  kind  lad, 
his  kinsman,  attended  his  elder  comrade  with  a  very  praise-  25 
worthy  affectionateness  and  care  until  he  was  pronounced 
out  of  danger  by  the  doctors,  when  Frank  went  off,  passed     , 
the  winter  at  Bruxelles,  and  besieged,  no  doubt,  some  other 
fortress  there.     Very  fev/  lads  would  have  given  up  their 
pleasures  so  long  and  so  gaily  as  Frank  did;    his  cheerful  30 
prattle  soothed  many  long  days  of  Esmond's  pain  and  lan- 
guor.    Frank  was  supposed  to  be  still  at  his  kinsman's  bed- 
sirle  for  a  month  after  he  had  left  it,  for  letters  came  from 
his  mother  at  home  full  of  thanks  to  the  younger  gentleman 
for  his  care  of  his  elder  brother   (so  it  pleased   Esmond's  35 
mistress    now   affectionately   to   style    him) ;     nor   was   Mr. 
Esmond  in  a  hurry  to  undeceive  her,  when  the  good  young 
fellow  was  gone  for  his  Christmas  holiday.     It  was  as  pleasant 
to  Esmond  on  his  couch  to  watch  the  young  man's  pleasure 


338  HENRY   ESMOND 

at  the  idea  of  being  free,  as  to  note  his  simple  efforts  to  dis- 
guise his  satisfaction  on  going  away.  There  are  days  when 
a  flask  of  champagne  at  a  cabaret, °  and  a  red-cheeked  partner 
to  share  it,  are  too  strong  temptations  for  any  young  fellow 
5  of  spirit.  I  am  not  going  to  play  the  moralist,  and  cry  ''  Fie.'' 
For  ages  past,  I  know  how  old  men  preach,  and  what  young 
men  practise;  and  that  patriarchs  have  had  their  weak 
moments,  too,  long  since  Father  Noah  toppled  over  after 
discovering  the  vine.     Frank  went  off,  then,  to  his  pleasures 

10  at  Bruxelles,  in  which  capital  many  young  fellows  of  our 
army  declare  they  found  infinitely  greater  diversion  even 
than  in  London :  and  Mr.  Henry  Esmond  remained  in  his 
sick-room,  where  he  writ  a  fine  comedy,  that  his  mistress 
pronounced  to  be  subhme,  and  that  was  acted  no  less  than 

i£  three  successive  nights  in  London  in  the  next  year. 

Here,  as  he  lay  nursing  himself,  ubiquitous  Mr,  Holtz  re- 
appeared, and  stopped  a  whole  month  at  Mons,.  where  he  not 
only  won  over  Colonel  Esmond  to  the  King's  side  in  politicks 
(that  side  being  always  held  by  the  Esmond  family) ;    but 

20  where  he  endeavoured  to  re-open  the  controversial  question 
between  th^  churches  once  more,  and  to  recall  Esmond  to 
that  religion  in  which,  in  his  infancy,  he  haci  been  baptized. 
Holtz  was  a  casuist,  both  dexterous  and  learned,  and  pre- 
sented the  case  between  the  English  church  and  his  own  in 

25  such  a  way,  that  those  who  granted  his  premises  ought 
fortainly  to  allow  his  conclusions.  He  touched  on  Esmond's 
delicate  state  of  health,  chance  of  dissolution, °  and  so  forth; 
and  enlarged  upon  the  immense  benefits  that  the  sick  man 
was  likely  to  forgo,  —  benefits  which  the  Church  of  England 

30  did  not  deny  to  those  of  the  Roman  communion, °  as  how 
should  she,  being  derived  from  that  church,  and  only  an 
offshoot  from  it.  J^ut  Mr.  Esmond  said  that  his  church  was 
the  church  of  his  country,  and  to  that  he  chose  to  remain 
faithful :   other  people  were  welcome  to  worship  and  to  sub- 

35  s(;ril)e  any  other  set  of  articles,  whether  at  Home  or  at  Augs- 
burg.°  But  if  the  good  Father  meant  that  l^lsmond  should 
join  the  Roman  communion  for  fear  of  conse(iuences,  and 
that  all  lOngland  ran  the  risk  of  being  damnecl  for  heresy, 
Esmond,  for  onC;  was  perfectly  willing  to  take  his  chance  of 


HENRY   ESMOND  339 

the  penalty  along  with  the  countless  millions  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen,  who  were  bred  in  the  same  faith,  and  along 
with  some  of  the  noblest,  the  truest,  the  purest,  the  wisest, 
the  most  pious  and  learned  men  and  women  in  the  world. 

As  for  the  political  question,  in  that  Mr.  Esmond  could  5 
agree  with  the  Father  much  more  readily,  and  had  come  to 
the  same  conclusion,  though,  perhaps,  by  a  different  way. 
The  right-divine  about  which  Dr.  Sacheverel°  and  the  high- 
church  party  in  England  were  just  now  making  a  pother, 
they   were    welcome    to    hold    as   they    chose.     If    Richard  10 
Cromwell, °  and  his  father  before  him,   had  been   crowned 
and  anointed  (and  bishops  enough  would  have  been  found 
to  do  it),  it  seemed  to  Mr.  Esmond  that  they  would  have  had 
the  right-divine  just  as  much  as  any  Plantagenet,  or  Tudor, 
or  Stuart.     But  the  desire  of  the  country  being  unquestion-  15 
ably  for  an  hereditary  monarchy,  Esmond  thought  an  English 
king  out  of  St.  Germains  was  better  and  fitter  than  a  German 
prince  from  Herrenhausen,°  and  that  if  he  failed  to  satisfy 
the  nation,  some  other  Englishman  might  be  found  to  take 
his  place ;    and  so,  though  with  no  frantick  enthusiasm,  or  20 
worship  of  that  monstrous  pedigree  which  the  Tories  chose 
to  consider  divine,  he  was  ready  to  say,  "God  save  Ejng 
James ! "  when  Queen  Anne  went  the  way  of  kings  and  com- 
moners. 

"I  fear,  Colonel,  you  are  no  better  than  a  republican  at  25 
heart,"  says  the  priest,  with  a  sigh. 

"I  am  an  Englishman,"  says  Harry,  "and  take  my  country 
as  I  find  her.     The  will  of  the  nation  being  for  Church  and 
King,  I  am  for  church  and  king,  too;    but  English  church, 
and  English  king;   and  that  is  why  your  church  isn't  mine,  3a 
though  your  king  is." 

Though  they  lost  the  day  at  Malplaquet,  it  was  the  French 
who  were  elated  by  that  action,  whilst  the  conquerors  were 
dispirited  by  it;  and  the  enemy  gathered  together  a  larger 
army  than  ever,  and  made  prodigious  efforts  for  the  next  3J 
campaign.  Marshal  Berwick  was  with  the  French  this 
year ;  and  we  heard  that  ]\Iareschal  Villars  was  still  suffering 
of  his  wound,  was  eager  to  bring  our  Duke  to  action,  and 
vow^ed  he  would  fight  us  in  his  coach.     Young  Castlewood 


340  HENRY   ESMOND 

came  flying  back  from  Bruxelles,  as  soon  as  he  heard  that 
fighting  was  to  begin;  and  the  arrival  of  the  Chevaher  de 
St.  George  was  announced  about  May.  ''It's  the  King's 
third  campaign,  and  it's  mine,"  Frank  hked  saying.  He 
5  was  come  back  a  greater  Jacobite  than  ever,  and  Esmond 
suspected  that  some  fair  conspirators  at  Bruxelles  had  been 
inflaming  the  young  man's  ardour.  Indeed,  he  owned  that 
he  had  a  message  from  the  Queen,  Beatrix's  godmother, 
who  had  given  her  name  to  Frank's  sister  the  year  before  he 

lo  and  his  sovereign  were  born. 

However  desirous  Marshal  Villars  might  be  to  fight,  my 
Lord  Duke  did  not  seem  disposed  to  indulge  him  this  cam- 
paign. Last  year  his  Grace  had  been  all  for  the  Whigs  and 
Hanoverians;   but  finding,  on  going  to  England,  his  country 

15  cold  towards  himself,  and  the  people  in  a  ferment  of  high- 
church  loyalty,  the  Duke  comes  back  to  his  army  cooled 
towards  the  Hanoverians,  cautious  with  the  Imperialists, 
and  particularly  civil  and  polite  towiirds  the  Chevalier  de 
St.  George.     'Tis  certain  that  messengers  and  letters  were 

20  continually  passing  between  his  Grace  and  his  brave  nephew, 
the  Duke  of  Berwick,  in  the  opposite  camp.  No  man's  ca- 
resses were  more  opportune  than  his  CJrace's,  and  no  man  ever 
uttered  expressions  of  regard  and  affection  more  generously. 
He  professed  to  Monsieur  de  Torcy,   so  Mr.   St.  John  told 

25  the  writer,  quite  an  eagerness  to  be  cut  in  pieces  for  the 
exiled  Queen  and  her  family;  nay  more,  I  believe,  this  year 
he  parted  with  a  portion  of  the  most  precious  part  of  himself 
—  his  money,  — •  which  he  sent  over  to  the  royal  exiles. 
Mr.  Tunstal,  who  was  in  the  Prince's  service,  was  twice  or 

30  thrice  in  and  out  of  our  camp ;  the  French,  in  theirs  of  Arlieu 
and  about  Arras.  A  little  river,  the  Canihe,  I  think  'twas 
called  (but  this  is  writ  away  from  books  and  Europe;  and 
the  only  map  the  writer  hath  of  these  scenes  of  his  youth, 
bears  no  mark  of  this  little  stream),  divided  our  pic(|uets 

35  from  the  enemy's.  Our  sentries  talked  across  the  stream, 
wh(ui  they  could  make  themselves  understood  to  each  other, 
and  when  they  could  not,  grinned,  and  handed  each  other 
their  brandy-flasks  or  their  pouches  of  tobacco.  And  one 
fine  day  of  June,  riding  thither  with  the  officer  who  visited 


HENRY   ESMOND  341 

the  outposts  (Colonel  Esmond  was  taking  an  airing  on  horse- 
back, being  too  weak  for  military  duty),  they  came  to  this 
river,  where  a  number  of  English  and  Scots  were  assembled, 
talking  to  the  good-natured  enemy  on  the  other  side. 

Esmond  was  especially  amusecl  with  the  talk  of  one  long  5 
fellow,  with  a  great  curling  red  moustache,  and  blue  eyes, 
that  was  half  a  dozen  inches  taller  than  his  swarthy  little 
comrades  on  the  French  side  of  the  stream,  and  being  asked 
by  the  Colonel,  saluted  him,  and  said  that  he  belonged  to  the 
Royal  Cravats.  10 

From  his  way  of  saying  ''Royal  Cravat,"  Esmond  at  once 
knew  that  the  fellow's  tongue  had  first  wagged  on  the  banks 
of  the  Liffey,  and  not  the  Loire° ;  and  the  poor  soldier  — 
a  deserter  probably  —  did  not  like  to  venture  very  deep  into 
French  con^-ersation,  lest  his  unlucky  brogue  should  peep  15 
out.  He  chose  to  restrict  himself  to  such  few  expressions 
in  the  French  language  as  he  thought  he  had  mastered 
easily;  and  his  attempt  at  disguise  was  infinitely  amusing. 
Mr.  Esmond  whistled  "  Lillibullero,°''  at  w^hich  Teague's° 
eyes  began  to  twinkle,  and  then  flung  him  a  dollar,  when  the  20 
poor  boy  broke  out  with  a  "God  bless — -that  is,  Dieu 
benisse  votre  honor,  °"  that  would  infaUibly  have  sent  him 
to  the  Provost-Marshal  had  he  been  on  our  side  of  the 
river. 

Whilst  this  parley  was  going  on,  three  officers  on  horse-  25 
back,  on  the  French  side,  appeared  at  some  little  distance, 
and  stopped  as  if  eyeing  us,  when  one  of  them  left  the  other 
two,  and  rode  close  up  to  us  who  were  by  the  stream.  ''  Look, 
look!"  says  the  Royal  Cravat,  with  great  agitation,  "pc/s 
lid,  that's  he,  not  him,  Vautre°'^  and  pointed  to  the  distant  3° 
officer  on  a  chestnut  horse,  with  a  cuirass  shining  in  the  sun, 
and  over  it  a  broad  blue  ribbon. 

"Please  to  take  Mr.  Hamilton's  services  to  my  Lord  Marl- 
borough—  my  Lord  Duke,"  says  the  gentleman  in  English; 
and,  looking  to  see  that  the  party  were  not  hostilely  disposed,  3S 
he  added,  with  a  smile,  "There's  a  friend  of  yours,  gentlemen, 
yonder;  he  bids  me  to  say  that  he  saw  some  of  your  faces 
on  the  11th  of  September"  last  year." 

As  the  gentleman-  spoke,  the  other  two  officers  rode  up,  and 


342  HENRY   ESMOND 

came  quite  close.  We  knew  at  once  who  it  was.  It  was  the 
King,  then  two-and-twenty  years  old,  tall  and  sUm,  with 
deep  brown  eyes,  that  looked  melanchol}^,  though  his  lips 
wore  a  smile.  We  took  otf  our  hats  and  saluted  him.  No 
5  man,  sure,  could  see  for  the  first  time,  without  emotion,  the 
youthful  inheritor  of  so  much  fame  and  misfortune.  It 
seemed  to  Mr.  Esmond  that  the  Prince  was  not  unlike 
young  Castlewood,  whose  age  and  figure  he  resembled. 
The  Chevalier  de  St.  George  acknowledged  the  salute,  and 

10  looked  at  us  hard.  Even  the  idlers  on  our  side  of  the  river 
set  up  a  hurrah.  As  for  the  Royal  Cravat,  he  ran  to  the 
Prince's  stirrup,  knelt  down  and  kissed  his  boot,  and  bawled 
and  looked  a  hundred  ejaculations  and  blessings.  The 
Prince  bade  the  aide-de-camp  give  him  a  piece  of  money; 

15  and  when  the  party  saluting  us  had  ridden  away.  Cravat  spat 
upon  the  piece  of  gold  by  way  of  benediction,  and  swaggered 
away,  pouching  his  coin  and  twirling  his  honest  carroty 
moustache. 

The  officer  in  whose  company  Esmond  was,  the  same  little 

20  captain  of  Handyside's  regiment,  Mr.  Sterne, °  who  had  pro- 
posed the  garden  at  Lille,  when  my  Lord  Mohun  and  Esmond 
had  their  affair,  was  an  Irishman  too,  and  as  brave  a  little 
soul  as  ever  wore  a  sword.  "Bedad,"  says  Roger  Sterne, 
"that  long  fellow  spoke  French  so  beautiful,  that  I  shouldn't 

25  have  known  he  wasn't  a  foreigner,  till  he  broke  out  with  his 
hulla-balloing,  and  only  an  Irish  calf  can  bellow  like  that." 
—  And  Roger  made  another  remark  in  his  wild  way,  in  which 
there  was  sense  as  well  as  absurdity  —  "  If  that  young  gentle- 
man," says  he,  "would  but  ride  over  to  our  camp  instead  of 

30  Villars's,  toss  up  his  hat  and  say,  'Here  am  I,  the  King,  who'll 

follow  me  ?'  by  the  Lord,  Esmond,  the  whole  army  would  rise, 

and  carry  him  home  again,  and  beat  Villars,  and  take  Paris  by 

(he  way." 

The  news  of  the  Prince's  visit  was  all  through  the  camp 

35  quickly,  and  scores  of  ours  went  down  in  hopes  to  see  him. 
Majoi-  Hamilton,  whom  we  had  talked  with,  sent  back  by  a 
trumpet  several  silver  pieces  for  officers  with  us.  Mr.  Es- 
mond received  one  of  these:  and  that  medal,  and  a  recom- 
pense not  uncommon  amongst  Princes,  were  the  only  rewards 


HENRY   ESMOND  343 

he  ever  had  from  a  Royal  person,  whom  he  endeavoured  not 
very  long  after  to  serve. 

Esmond  quitted  the  army  almost  immediately  after  this, 
following  his  general  home;    and,  indeed,  being  advised  to 
travel  in  the  fine  weather,  and  attempt  to  take  no  further  5 
part  in  the  campaign.     But  he  heard  from  the  army,  that 
of  the  many  who  crowded  to  see  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George, 
Frank    Castlewood    had    made    himself    most    conspicuous : 
my  Lord  Viscount  riding  across  the  little  stream  bare-headed 
to   where   the   Prince   was,   and   dismounting   and   kneeling  10 
before  him  to  do  him  homage.     Some  said  that  the  Prince 
had  actually  knighted  him,  but  my  lord  denied  that  state- 
ment, though  he  acknowledged  the  rest  of  the  story,  and 
said:  —  "From   having  been  out   of  favour  with  Corporal 
John,"  as  he  called  the  Duke,  ''before,  his  Grace  warned  him  .5 
not  to  commit  those  folHes,  and  smiled  on  him  cordially  ever 
after." 

''And  he  was  so  kind  to  me,''  Frank  writ,  "that  I  thought 
I  would  put  in  a  good  word  for  Master  Harry,  but  when  I  men- 
tioned your  name  he  looked  as  black  as  thunder,  and  said  20 
he  had  never  heard  of  you." 


CHAPTER   II 

I    GO    HOaiE,    AND    HARP    ON    THE    OLD    STRING 

After  quitting  Mons  and  the  army,  and  as  he  was  waiting 
for  a  packet  at  Ostend,  Esmond  had  a  letter  from  his  young 
kinsman    Castlewood    at    Bruxelles,    conveying    intelligence 
whereof  Frank  besought  him  to  be  the  bearer  to  London,  and  25 
w^hich  caused  Colonel  Esmond  no  small  anxiety. 

The  young  scapegrace,  being  one-and-twenty  years  old, 
and  being  anxious  to  sow  his  "wild  otes,°"  as  he  wrote,  had 
married  Mademoiselle  de  Wertheim,  daughter  of  Count  de 
Wertheim,  Chamberlain  to  the  Emperor,  and  having  a  post  30 
in  the  Household  of  the  Governor  of  the  Netherlands.  "  P.S." 
—  the  young  gentleman  wrote:  "Clotilda  is  older  than  me, 
which  perhaps  may  be  objected  to  her:   but  I  am  so  old  a 


344  HENRY   ESMOND 

raik,  that  the  age  makes  no  difference,  and  I  am  determined 
to  reform.  We  were  married  at  St.  Giidule°  by  Father  Holt. 
She  is  heart  and  soul  for  the  good  cause.  And  here  the  cry  is 
Vif-le-Roy,  which  my  mother  will  join  in,  and  Trix  too. 
5  Break  this  news  to  'em  gently  :  and  tell  Mr.  Finch,  my  agent, 
to  press  the  people  for  their  rents,  and  send  me  the  rijno^  any- 
how. Clotilda  sings,  and  plays  on  the  Spinet  beautifully. 
She  is  a  fair  beauty.  And  if  it's  a  son,  you  shall  stand  God- 
father.    I'm   going   to   leave  the  army,  having  had  enuf  of 

10  soldering;  and  my  Lord  Duke  recommends  me.  I  shall  pass 
the  winter  here :  and  stop  at  least  until  Clo's  lying-in.  I 
call  her  old  Clo,  but  nobody  else  shall.  She  is  the  cleverest 
woman  in  all  Bruxelies :  understanding  painting,  musick, 
poetry,  and  -perfect  at  cookery  and  puddens.     I  borded  with 

15  the  Count,  that's  how  I  came  to  know  her.  There  are  four 
Counts  her  brothers.  One  an  Abbey  —  three  with  the 
Prince's  army.  They  have  a  law^suit  for  an  immcnce  fortune: 
but  are  now  in  a  pore  way.  Break  this  to  motlier,  wl^o'U 
take  anything  from  you.     And  write,  and  bid  Finch  write 

20  ainediately.     Hostel  de  I'Aigle  Noire, °  Bruxelies,  Flanders." 
So  Frank  had  married  a  Roman  Catholick  lady,  and  an 
heir  was  expected,  and  ]\Ir.  Esmond  was  to  carry  this  intel- 
ligence to  his  mistress  at  London.     'Twas  a  difficult  embassy ; 
and  the  Colonel  felt  not  a  little  tremor  as  he  neared  the 

25  capital. 

He  reached  his  inn  late,  and  sent  a  messenger  to  Kensington 
to  announce  his  arrival  and  visit  the  next  morning.  The 
messenger  brought  back  news  that  the  Court  w\ns  at  Windsor, ° 
and  the  fair  Beatrix  absent,  and  engaged  in  her  duties  there. 

30  Only  Esmond's  mistress  remained  in  her  house  at  Kensing- 
ton. She  appeared  in  Court  but  once  in  the  year;  Beatrix 
was  fjuite  the  mistress  and  ruler  of  the  little  mansion,  inviting 
the  company  thither,  and  engaging  in  every  conceivable 
frolick  of  town  })leasure.     Whilst  h(»r  mother,  acting  as  the 

35  young  lady's  protectress  and  elder  sister,  pursued  her  own 
path,  which  was  (juite  modest  and  secluded. 

As  soon  as  ever  Esmond  was  dressed  (and  he  had  been 
awake  long  before  the  town),  he  took  a  coach  for  Kensington, 
and  reached  it  so  early,  that  he  met  his  dear  mistress  coming 


HENRY  ESMOND  345 

home  from  morning  prayers.  She  carried  her  prayer-book, 
never  allowing  a  footman  to  bear  it,  as  everybody  else  did : 
and  it  was  by  this  simple  sign  Esmond  knew  what  her  oc- 
cupation had  been.  He  called  to  the  coachman  to  stop,  and 
jumped  out  as  she  looked  towards  him.  She  wore  her  hood  5 
as  usual :  and  she  turned  quite  pale  when  she  saw  him.  To 
feel  that  kind  little  hand  near  to  his  heart  seemed  to  give  him 
strength.  They  soon  were  at  the  door  of  her  ladyship's 
house  —  and  within  it. 

With  a  sweet  sad  smile  she  took  his  hand  and  kissed  it.  zo 

"  How  ill  you  have  been :  how  weak  you  look,  my  dear 
Henry!"  she  said. 

'Tis  certain  the  Colonel  did  look  like  a  ghost,  except  that 
ghosts  do  not  look  very  happy,  'tis  said.     Esmond  always  felt 
so  on  returning  to  her  after  absence,   indeed  whenever  he  15 
looked  in  her  sweet  kind  face. 

"I  am  come  back  to  be  nursed  by  my  family,"  says  he. 
''If  Frank  had  not  taken  care  of  me  after  my  wound,  very 
likely  I  should  have  gone  altogether." 

"Poor  Frank,   good  Frank!"  says  his  mother.     "You'll  20 
always  be  kind  to  him,  my  lord,"  she  went  on.     "The  poor 
child  never  knew  he  was  doing  you  a  wrong." 

"My  lord!"  cries  out  Colonel  Esmond.  "What  do  you 
mean,   dear  lady?" 

"I  am  no  lady,"  says  she,  "I  am  Rachel  Esmond,  Francis  25 
Esmond's  widow,  m}^  lord.     I  cannot  bear  that  title.     Would 
we  had  ne^'er  taken  it  from  him  who  has  it  now.     But  we  did 
all  in  our  power,  Henry;   we  did  all  in  our  power;   and  my 
lord  and  I  —  that  is " 

"Who  told  you  this  tale,  dearest  lady?"  asked  the  Colonel.  30 

"Have  you  not  had  the  letter  I  writ  you?  I  writ  to  you 
at  Mons  directly  I  heard  it,"  says  Lady  Esmond. 

"And  from  whom?"  again  asked  Colonel  Esmond,  —  and 
his  mistress  then  told  him  that  on  her  death-bed  the  Dow- 
ager Countess,  sending  for  her,  had  presented  her  with  this  35 
dismal  secret  as  a  legacy.  "  'Twas  very  malicious  of  the 
dowager,"  Lady  Esmond  said,  "to  have  had  it  so  long,  and 
to  have  kept  the  truth  from  me.  'Cousin  Rachel,'"  she 
said,   and  Esmond's  mistress  could  not  forbear  smiling  as 


346  HENRY   ESMOND 

she  told  the  story,  "'Cousin  Rachel,'  cries  the  dowager,  '\ 
have  sent  for  you,  as  the  doctors  say  I  may  go  off  any  day 
in  this  dysentery ;  and  to  ease  my  conscience  of  a  great  load 
that  has  been  on  it.  You  always  have  been  a  poor  creature 
5  and  unfit  for  great  honour,  and  what  I  have  to  say  won't, 
therefore,  affect  you  so  much.  You  must  know.  Cousin 
Rachel,  that  I  have  left  my  house,  plate,  and  furniture,  three 
thousand  pounds  in  money,  and  my  diamonds  that  my  late 
revered  Saint  and  Sovereign,  King  James,  presented  me  with, 

lo  to  my  Lord  Viscount  Castle  wood.' 

'"To    my   Frank?'   says   Lady   Castlewood :    'I    was    in 

hopes ' 

"'To  Viscount  Castlewood,  my  dear;  Viscount  Castlewood 
and  Baron  Esmond  of  Shandon  in  the  kingdom  of  Ireland, 

15  Earl  and  Marquis  of  Esmond  under  patent  of  his  Majesty 
King  James  the  Second,  conferred  upon  my  husband  the  late 
Marquis,  —  for  I  am  Marchioness  of  Esmond  before  God  and 
man.' 

"'And  have  you  left  poor  Harry  nothing,  dear  Marchion- 

20  ess  ? '  asks  Lady  Castlewood  (she  hath  told  me  the  story 
completely  since  with  her  quiet  arch  way;  the  most  charm- 
ing any  woman  ever  had :  and  I  set  down  the  narrative  here 
at  length  so  as  to  have  done  with  it).  'And  have  you  left 
poor  Harry  nothing?'"  asks  my  dear  lady:   "for  you  know, 

25  Henry,"  she  says  with  her  sweet  smile,  "I  used  always  to 
pity  Esau  —  and  I  think  I  am  on  his  side  —  though  papa 
tried  very  hard  to   convince   me  the  other  way." 

"'Poor  Harry!'  says  the  old  lady.     'So  you  want  some- 
thing left  to  poor  Harry  :  he,  he  !  (reach  me  the  drops,  cousin). 

30  Well  then,  my  dear,  since  you  want  poor  Harry  to  have  a 
fortune:  you  must  understand  that  ever  since  the  year  1691, 
a  week  after  the  battle  of  the  Boyne,  where  the  Prince  of 
Orange  defeated  his  royal  sovereign  and  father,  for  which 
crime  he  is  now  suffering  in  flames  (ugh!    ugh!),  Harry  Es- 

35  mond  hath  been  Marcjuis  of  Esmond  and  Earl  of  Castlewood 
in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  Baron  and  Viscount  Castlewood 
of  Shandon  in  L-eland,  and  a  I^aronet,  —  and  his  eldest  son 
will  be,  —  by  court(\sy,  styled  Earl  of  Castlewood  —  he  !  he ! 
What  do  you  think  of  that,  my  dear?' 


HENRY   ESMOND  347 

" '  Gracious  mercy  !  how  long  have  you  known  this  ? '  cries 
the  other  lady  (thinking  perhaps  that  the  old  Marchioness 
was  wandering  in  her  wits). 

"'My  husband,  before  he  was  converted,  was  a  wicked 
wretch,'  the  sick  sinner  continued.  'When  he  was  in  the  5 
Low  Countries  he  seduced  a  weaver's  daughter;  and  added 
to  his  wickedness  by  marrying  her.  And  then  he  came  tc 
this  country  and  married  me  —  a  poor  girl  —  a  poor  inno- 
cent young  thing  —  I  say,'  though  she  was  jDast  forty,  3'ou 
know,  Harry,  when  she  married :  and  as  for  being  innocent,  lo 
—  'Well,'  she  went  on,  'I  knew  nothing  of  my  lord's  wicked- 
ness for  three  years  after  our  marriage,  and  after  the  burial  of 
our  poor  little  boy  I  had  it  done  over  again,  my  dear,  I  had 
myself  married  by  Father  Holt  in  Castlewood  chapel  as  soon 
as  ever  I  heard  the  creature  was  dead  —  and  having  a  great  15 
illness  then,  arising  from  another  sad  disappointment  I  had, 
the  priest  came  and  told  me  that  my  lord  had  a  son  before 
our  marriage,  and  that  the  child  was  at  nurse  in  England; 
and  I  consented  to  let  the  brat  be  brought  home,  and  a  queer 
little  melancholy  child  it  was  when  it  came.  20 

" '  Our  intention  was  to  make  a  priest  of  him  :  and  he  was 
bred  for  this,  until  you  perverted  him  from  it,  you  wicked 
woman.  And  I  had  again  hopes  of  giving  an  heir  to  my  lord, 
when  he  was  called  away  upon  the  King's  business,  and  died 
fighting  gloriously  at  the  Bo3^ne  water.  25 

"'Should  I  be  chsappointed,  —  I  owed  your  husband  no 
love,  my  dear,  for  he  had  jilted  me  in  the  most  scandalous 
way ;  and  I  thought  there  would  be  time  to  declare  the  little 
weaver's  son  for  the  true  heir.  But  I  was  carried  off  to 
prison,  where  your  husband  was  so  kind  to  me,  —  urging  all  30 
his  friends  to  obtain  my  release,  and  using  all  his  credit  in  my 
favour,  —  that  I  relented  towards  hin\,  especiall}^  as  my 
director  counselled  me  to  be  silent ;  and  that  it  was  for  the 
good  of  the  King's  service  that  the  t'tle  of  our  family  should 
continue  with  your  husband  the  late  Viscount,  whereby  his  35 
fidelity  would  be  always  secured  to  the  King.  And  the 
proof  of  this  is,  that  a  year  before  your  husband's  death,  when 
he  thought  of  taking  a  place  under  the  Prince  of  Orange,  Mr. 
Holt  went  to  him,  and  told  hina  what  the  state  of  the  matter 


348  HENRY  ESMOND 

was,  and  obliged  him  to  raise  a  large  sum  for  his  Majesty; 
and  engaged  him  in  the  true  cause  so  heartily,  that  we  were; 
sure  of  his  support  on  any  day  when  it  should  be  considered 
advisable  to  attack  the  usurper.  Then  his  sudden  death 
5  came ;  and  there  was  a  thought  of  declaring  the  truth.  But 
'twas  determined  to  be  best  for  the  King's  service  to  let  the 
title  still  go  with  the  younger  branch;  and  there's  no  sac- 
rifice a  Castlewood  wouldn't  make  for  that  cause,  my  dear. 
"'As  for  Colonel  Esmond,  he  knew  the  truth  already'  (and 

10  then,  Harry,"  my  mistress  said,  ''she  told  me  of  what  had 
happened  at  my  dear  husband's  death-bed).  *He  doth  not 
intend  to  take  the  title,  though  it  belongs  to  him.  But  it 
eases  my  conscience  that  you  should  know  the  truth,  my 
dear.     And  your  son  is  lawfully  Viscount  Castlewood  so  long 

15  as  his  cousin  doth  not  claim  the  rank.'" 

This  was  the  substance  of  the  dowager's  revelation.  Dean 
Atterbury  had  knowledge  of  it,  Lady  Castlewood  said,  and 
Esmond  very  well  knows  how :  that  divine  being  the  clergy- 
man for  whom  the  late  lord  had  sent  on  his  death-bed :  and 

20  when  Lady  Castlewood  would  instantly  have  written  to  her 
son,  and  conveyed  the  truth  to  him,  the  Dean's  advice  was 
that  a  letter  should  be  writ  to  Colonel  Esmond  rather ;  that 
the  matter  should  be  submitted  to  his  decision,  by  which 
alone  the  rest  of  the  family  were  bound  to  abide. 

25  "And  can  my  dearest  lady  doubt  what  that  will  be?"  says 
the  Colonel. 

"It  rests  with  you,  Harry,  as  the  head  of  our  house." 
"It  was  settled  twelve  years  since,  by  my  dear  lord's  bed- 
side,"  says    Colonel    Esmond.     "The    children    must   know 

30  nothing  of  this.  Frank  and  his  heirs  after  him  must  bear 
our'  name.  'Tis  his  rightfully ;  I  have  not  even  a  proof  of 
that  marriage  of  my  father  and  mother,  though  my  poor  lord, 
on  his  death-bed,  told  me  that  Father  Holt  had  brought  such 
a  proof  to  Castlewood.     I  would  not  seek  it  when  I  was 

35  abroad.  I  went  and  looked  at  my  poor  mother's  grave  in 
her  convent.  What  matter  to  her  now?  No  court  of  law 
on  earth,  upon  my  mere  word,  would  deprive  my  Lord  Vis- 
count and  set  me  up.  I  am  the  head  of  the  house,  dear 
lady;    but    Frank    is   Viscount    of   Castlewood   still.      Ane' 


HENRY   ESMOND  349 

rather  than  disturb  him,  I  would  turn  monk,  or  disappear 
in  America." 

As  he  spoke  so  to  his  dearest  mistress,  for  whom  he  would 
have  been  willing  to  give  up  his  life,  or  to  make  any  sacrifice 
any  day,  the  fond  creature  flung  herself  down  on  her  knees  5 
before  him,  and  kissed  both  his  hands  in  an  outbreak  of 
passionate  love  and  gratitude,  such  as  could  not  but  melt 
his  heart,  and  make  him  feel  very  proud  and  thankful  that 
God  had  given  him  the  power  to  show  his  love  for  her,  and 
to  prove  it  by  some  Uttle  sacrifice  on  his  own  part.  To  be  10 
able  to  bestow  benefits  or  happiness  on  those  one  loves  is  sure 
the  greatest  blessing  conferred  upon  a  man,  —  and  what 
wealth  or  name,  or  gratification  of  ambition  or  vanity  could 
compare  with  thy  pleasure  Esmond  now  had  of  being  able 
to  confer  some  kindness  upon  his  best  and  dearest  friends?  15 

"Dearest  saint,"  says  he  —  "purest  soul,  that  has  had 
so  much  to  suffer,  that  has  blessed  the  poor  lonely  orphan 
w4th  such  a  treasure  of  love.  Tis  for  me  to  kneel,  not  for  you : 
'tis  for  me  to  be  thankful  that  I  can  make  you  happy.  Hath 
my  hfe  any  other  aim  ?  Blessed  be  God  that  I  can  serve  you  !  20 
What  pleasure,  think  you,  could  all  the  world  give  me  com- 
pared to  that?" 

"Don't  raise  me,"  she  said,  in  a  wild  way,  to  Esmond,  who 
would  have  lifted  her.  "Let  me  kneel  —  let  me  kneel,  and 
—  and  —  worship  you."  25 

Before  such  a  partial  judge,  as  Esmond's  dear  mistress 
owned  herself  to  be,  any  cause  which  he  might  plead,  was 
sure  to  be  given  in  his  favour;  and  accordingl}^  he  found 
little  difficulty  in  reconciling  her  to  the  news  whereof  he  was 
bearer,  of  her  son's  marriage  to  a  foreign  lady,  Papi-.t  though  30 
she  was.  Lady  Castlewood  never  could  be  brought  to  think 
so  ill  of  that  religion  as  other  people  in  England  thought 
of  it:  she  held  that  ours  was  undoubtedly  a  branch  of  the 
Church  Catholick,  but  that  the  Roman  was  one  of  the  main 
stems  on  which,  no  doubt,  many  errors  had  been  grafted  35 
(she  w^as,  for  a  woman,  extraordinarily  well  versed  in  this  con- 
troversy, having  acted,  as  a  girl,  as  secretary  to  her  father, 
the  late  dean,  and  written  many  of  his  sermons,  under  his 
dictation) ;   and  if  Frank  had  chosen  to  marry  a  lady  of  the 


350  HENRY   ESMOND 

church  of  south  Europe,  as  she  would  call  the  Roman  com 
munion,  that  was  no  need  why  she  would  not  welcome  hei 
as  a  daughter-in-law;  and  accordingly  she  writ  to  her  new 
daughter  a  very  pretty,  touching  letter  (as  Esmond  thought, 
5  who  had  cognisance  of  it  before  it  went),  in  which  the  only 
hint  of  reproof  was  a  gentle  remonstrance  that  her  son  had 
not  written  to  herself,  to  ask  a  fond  mother's  blessing  for 
that  step  which  he  was  about  taking.  "Castlewood  knew 
ver}^  well,"  so  she  wrote  to  her  son,  ''that  she  never  denied 

10  him  anything  in  her  power  to  give,  much  less  would  she 
think  of  opposing  a  marriage  that  was  to  make  his  happiness, 
as  she  trusted,  and  keep  liim  out  of  wild  courses,  which  had 
alarmed  her  a  good  deal :  and  she  besought  him  to  come 
quickly  to  England,  to  settle  down  in  his  family  house  of 

15  Castlewood  ('It  is  his  family  house,'  says  she,  to  Colonel 
Esmond,  '  though  only  his  own  house  by  your  forbearance ') 
and  to  receive  the  accorapt  of  her  stewardship  during  his 
ten  years'  minority."  By  care  and  frugahty,  she  had  got 
the  estate  into  a  better  condition  than  ever  it  had  been  since 

20  the  Parliamentary  wars ;  and  my  lord  was  now  master  of  a 
IDretty,  small  income,  not  encumbered  of  debts,  as  it  had 
been,  during  his  father's  ruinous  time.  "But  in  saving  my 
son's  fortune,"  says  she,  "I  fear  I  have  lost  a  great  part  of 
my  hold   on   him."     And,  indeed,  this  was  the   case;    her 

25  ladyship's  daughter  complaining  that  their  mother  did  all 
for  Frank,  and  nothing  for  her;  and  Frank  himself  being 
dissatisfied  at  the  narrow,  simple  way  of  his  mother's  living 
at  Walcote,  where  he  had  been  brought  up  more  like  a  poor 
parson's  son,  than  a  young  nobleman  that  was  to  make  a 

30  figure  in  the  world.  'Twas  this  mistake  in  his  early  training, 
very  likely,  that  set  him  so  eager  ui)on  pleasure  when  he  had 
it  in  his  power ;  nor  is  he  the  first  lad  that  has  been  spoiled 
by  the  over-careful  fondness  of  women.  No  training  is 
so  useful  for  children,  great  or  small,  as  the  comi)any  of  their 

35  betters  in  rank  or  natural  parts;  in  whose  society  they  lose 
the  overweening  sense  of  their  own  importance,  which  stay- 
at-home  people  very  commonly  learn. 

J3ut,  as  a  prodigal  that's  sending  in  a  schedule  of  his  debts 
to  his  friends,  never  puts  all  down,  and,  you  may  be  sure,  the 


HENRY  ESMOND  351 

rogue  keeps  back  some  immense  swingeing  bill,  that  he 
doesn't  dare  to  own;  so  the  poor  Frank  had  a  very  heavy- 
piece  of  news  to  break  to  his  mother,  and  which  he  hadn't 
the  courage  to  introduce  into  his  first  confession.  Some 
misgivings  Esmond  might  have,  upon  receiving  Frank's  5 
letter,  and  knowing  into  what  hancls  the  boy  had  fallen; 
but  whatever  these  misgivings  were,  he  kept  them  to  him- 
self, not  caring  to  trouble  his  mistress  with  any  fears  that 
might  be  groundless. 

However,  the  next  mail  which  came  from  Bruxelles,  after  ic 
Frank  had  received  his  mother's  letters  there,  brought  back 
a  joint  composition  from  himself  and  his  wife,  who  could 
spell  no  better  than  her  young  scapegrace  of  a  husband,  full 
of  expressions  of  thanks,  love,  and  duty  to  the  Dowager 
Viscountess,  as  my  poor  lady  now  was  styled;  and  along  15 
with  this  letter  (which  was  read  in  a  family  council,  namely, 
the  Mscountess,  Mistress  Beatrix,  and  the  writer  of  this 
memoir,  and  which  was  pronounced  to  be  vulgar  by  the 
maid  of  honour,  and  felt  to  be  so  by  the  other  two)  there 
came  a  private  letter  for  Colonel  Esmond,  from  poor  Frank,  20 
with  another  dismal  commission  for  the  Colonel  to  execute, 
at  his  best  opportunity;  and  this  was  to  announce  that 
Frank  had  seen  fit,  ''by  the  exhortations  of  Mr.  Holt,  the 
influence  of  his  Clotilda,  and  the  blessing  of  Pleaven  and  the 
saints,"  says  my  lord,  demurely,  "to  change  hi^  religion,  25 
and  be  received  into  the  bosom  of  that  church  of  which  his 
sovereign,  many  of  his  family,  and  the  greater  part  of  the 
civilised  world  were  members."  And  his  lordship  added  a 
postscript,  of  which  Esmond  knew  the  inspiring  genius  very 
well,  for  it  had  the  genuine  twang  of  the  Seminary,  and  was  30 
quite  unlike  poor  Frank's  ordinary  style  of  writing  and 
thinking ;  in  which  he  reminded  Colonel  Esmond  that  he,  too, 
was,  by  birth,  of  that  church ;  and  that  his  mother  and  sister 
should  have  his  lordship's  prayers  to  the  saints  (an  inestimable 
benefit,  truly  !)  for  their  conversion.  35 

If  Esmond  had  wanted  to  keep  this  secret  he  could  not ; 
for  a  day  or  two  after  receiving  this  letter,  a  notice  from 
Bruxelles  appeared  in  the  Post-Boy,  and  other  prints,  an- 
nouncing that  "a  young  Irish  lord,  the  Viscount  C-stlew-d, 


352  HENRY  ESMOND 

just  come  to  his  majority,  and  who  had  served  the  last 
campaigns  with  great  credit,  as  aide-de-camp  to  his  Grace 
the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  had  declared  for  the  popish  religion 
at  Bruxelles,  and  had  walked  in  a  procession  barefoot,  with 
5  a  wax-taper  in  his  hand.''  The  notorious  Mr.  Holt,  who  had 
been  employed  as  a  Jacobite  agent  during  the  last  reign, 
and  many  times  pardoned  by  King  William,  had  been, 
the  Post-Boy  said,  the  agent  of  this  conversion. 

The   Lady   Castlewoocl  was  as  much  cast  down  by  this 

10  news  as  Miss  Beatrix  was  indignant  at  it.  ''So,''  says  she, 
"Castlewoocl  is  no  longer  a  home  for  us,  mother.  Frank's 
foreign  wife  will  bring  her  confessor,  and  there  will  be  frogs° 
for  dinner;  and  all  Tusher's  and  my  grandfather's  sermons 
are  flung  away  upon  my  brother.     I  used   to  tell  you  that 

15  you  killed  him  with  the  catechism,  and  that  he  would  turn 
wicked  as  soon  as  he  broke  from  his  mammy's  leading- 
strings.  Oh,  mother,  you  would  not  believe  that  the  young 
scapegrace  was  playing  you  tricks,  and  that  sneak  of  a 
Tusher  was  not  a  fit  guide  for  him.     Oh,  these  parsons,  I 

20  hate  'em  all,"  says  Mistress  Beatrix,  clapping  her  hands 
together;  "yes,  whether  they  wear  cassocks  and  buckles, 
or  beards  and  bare  feet.  There's  a  horrid  Irish  wretch*^ 
who  never  misses  a  Sunday  at  Court,  and  who  pays  me 
compliments  there,  the  horrible  man;    and  if  you  want  to 

25  know  what  parsons  are,  you  should  see  his  behaviour,  and 
hear  him  talk  of  his  own  cloth.  They're  all  the  same,  whether 
they're  bishops  or  bonzes,  or  Indian  fakirs.  They  try  to 
domineer,  and  they  frighten  us  with  kingdom-come;  and 
they  wear  a  sanctified  air  in  publick,  and  expect  us  to  go 

30  down  on  our  knees  and  ask  their  blessing ;  and  they  intrigue, 
and  they  grasp,  and  they  backbite,  and  they  slander  worse 
than  the  worst  courtier  or  the  wickedest  old  woman.  I 
heard  this  Mr.  Swift  sneering  at  my  Lord  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough's  courage  the  other  day.     He!    that  Teague  from 

35  Dul:)lin  !  because  his  Orace  is  not  in  favour  dares  to  say  this 
of  him  ;  and  he  says  this  that  it  may  get  to  her  Majesty's  ear, 
and  to  coax  and  wheedle  Mrs.  Masham.  They  say  the 
Elector  of  Hanover  has  a  dozen  of  mistresses  in  his  court  at 
Herrenhausen,  and  if  he  comes  to  be  king  over  us,  I  wager 


HENRY   ESMOND  353 

that  the  bishops  and  Mr.  Swift,  that  wants  to  be  one,  will 
coax  and  wheedle  them.  Oh,  those  priests  and  their  grave 
airs  !  I'm  sick  of  their  square  toes  and  their  rusthng  cassocks. 
I  should  like  to  go  to  a  country  where  there  was  not  one, . 
or  to  turn  Quaker,  and  get  rid  of  'em ;  and  I  would,  only  the  5 
dress  is  not  becoming,  and  I've  much  too  pretty  a  figure 
to  hide  it.  Haven't  I,  cousin?"  and  here  she  glanced  at 
her  person  and  the  looking-glass,  which  told  her  rightly  that 
a  more  beautiful  shape  and  face  never  were  seen. 

"I  made  that  onslaught  on  the  priests,"  says  Miss  Beatrix,  10 
afterwards,    "in    order    to    divert    my    poor    dear   mother's 
anguish  about  Frank.     Frank  is  as  vain  as  a  girl,  cousin. 
Talk  of  us  girls  being  vain,  Avhat  are  we  to  you?     It  was 
easy  to  see  that  the  first  woman  who  chose  v.ould  make  a 
fool  of  him,  or  the  first  robe  —  I  count  a  priest  and  a  woman  15 
all  the  same.     We  are  always  caballing ;   we  are  not  answer- 
able for  the  fibs  we  tell;  we  are  always  cajoling  and  coaxing, 
or  threatening;   and  we  are  always  making  mischief,  Colonel 
Esmond  —  mark  my  word  for  that,  who  know  the  world, 
sir,  and  have  to  make  my  wa}'  in  it.     I  see  as  well  as  possible  20 
how   Frank's   marriage    hath   been    managed.     The   Count, 
our  papa-in-law,  is  always  away  at  the  coffee-house.     The 
Countess,  cur  mother,  is  always  in  the  kitchen  looking  after 
the  dinner.     The  Countess,  our  sister,  is  at  the  spinet.     When 
my  lord  comes  to  say  he  is  goingon  the  campaign,  the  lovely  25 
Clotilda  bursts  into  tears,  and  faints  so;    he  catches  her  in 
his  arms  —  no,  sir,  keep  your  distance,  cousin,  if  you  please  — 
she    cries   on   his    shoulder,  and   he    says,  'Oh,  my   divine, 
my  adored,  my  beloved  Clotilda,  are  you  sorry  to  part  with 
me?'      'Oh,    my    Francisco,°'   says     she,    'Oh,    my    lord! '30 
and  at  this  very  instant  mamma  and  a   couple  of  young 
brothers,  with  mustachios  and  long  rapiers,   come  in  from 
the  kitchen,  where  they  have  been  eating  bread  and  onions. 
Mark  my  word,  you  will  have  all  this  woman's  relations  at 
Castlewood  three  months  after  she  has  arrived  there.     The  35 
old  count  and  countess,  and  the  young  counts  and  all  the 
Httle   countesses  her  sisters.     Counts !    every  one   of  these 
wretches  says  he  is  a  count.     Guiscard,  that  stabbed  Mr. 
Harley,°  said  he  was  a  count;  and  I  beheve  he  was  a  barber. 


354  EENEY   ESMOND 

All  Frenchmen  are  barbers  —  Fiddle-dee  !  don^t  contradict 
me  —  or  else  dancing-masters,  or  else  priests;"  and  so  she 
rattled  on. 

"Who   was   it   taught   you  to   dance,    cousin   Beatrix?" 
5  says  the  Colonel. 

She  laughed  out  the  air  of  a  minuet,  and  swept  a  low 
curtsey,  coming  up  to  the  recover  with  the  prettiest  little 
foot  in  the  world  pointed  out.  Her  mother  came  in  as  she 
was  in  this  attitude ;  my  lady  had  been  in  her  closet,  having 

10  taken  poor  Frank's  conversion  in  a  very  serious  waj^,  the 
madcap  girl  ran  up  to  her  mother,  put  her  arms  round  her 
waist,  kissed  her,  tried  to  make  her  dance,  and  said :  ''Don't 
be  silly,  a^ou  kind  little  mamma,  and  cry  about  Frank  turning 
Papist.     What  a  figure  he  must  be,  with  a  white  sheet  and  a 

15  candle  walking  in  a  procession  barefoot ! "  And  she  kicked 
off  her  little  slippers  (the  wonderfullest  little  shoes  with 
wonderful  tall  red  heels,  Esmond  pounced  upon  one  as  it 
fell  close  beside  him)  and  she  put  on  the  drollest  little  moup° 
and   marched   up   and   down   the   room   holding   Esmond's 

20  cane  by  way  of  taper.  Serious  as  her  mood  was.  Lady 
Castlewood  could  not  refrain  from  laughing;  and  as  for 
Esmond  he  looked  on  with  that  delight  with  which  the 
sight  of  this  fair  creature  always  inspired  him :  never  had  he 
seen  any  woman  so  arch,  so  brilliant,  and  so  beautiful. 

25  Having  finished  her  march,  she  put  out  her  foot  for  her 
slipper.  The  Colonel  knelt  down:  "If  j^ou  will  be  Pope  1 
will  turn  Papist,"  says  he;  and  her  HoUness  gave  him 
gracious  leave  to  kiss  the  little  stockinged  foot  before  he  put 
the  slipper  on. 

30  Ahimma's  feet  began  to  pat  on  the  floor  during  this  opera- 
tion, and  Beatrix,  whose  bright  eyes  nothing  escaped,  saw 
that  little  mark  of  impatience.  She  ran  up  and  embraced 
her  mother,  with  her  usual  cry  of,  "  Oh,  you  silly  little  mamma : 
your  feet  are   quite  as  pretty  as  mine,"   says   she:  "they 

35  are,  cousin,  though  she  hides  'em;  but  the  shoemaker  will 
tell  you  that  he  makes  for  both  off  the  same  last." 

"You  are  ta'Jer  than  I  am,  dearest,"  says  her  mother 
blusliing  over  her  whole  sweet  face  —  "and  —  and  it  is  your 
hand,  my  dear,  and  not  your  foot  he  wants  you  to  give  him," 


HENRY   ESMOND  355 

and  she  said  it  with  a  hysterick  laugh,  that  had  more  of  tears 
than  laughter  in  it;  laying  her  head  on  her  daughter's  fair 
shoulder  and  hiding  it  there.  They  made  a  very  pretty 
picture  together,  and  looked  like  a  pair  of  sisters  —  the 
sweet  simple  matron  seeming  younger  than  her  years,  and  5 
her  daughter,  if  not  older,  yet,  somehow,  from  a  commanding 
manner  and  grace  which  she  possessed  above  most  women, 
her  mother's  superior  and  protectress. 

"But   oh!"    cries   my   mistress,    recovering    herself   after 
this  scene,  and  returning  to  her  usual  sad  tone,  ''  'tis  a  shame  10 
that  we  should  laugh  and  be  making  merry  on  a  da}^  when 
we  ought  to  be  down  on  our   knees   and   asking  pardon." 

"Asking  pardon  for  what?"  says  saucy  ]\frs.  Beatrix, — 
"because  Frank  takes  it  into  his  head  to  fast  on  Fridays, 
and  worship  images?  You  know  if  you  had  been  born  a  15 
papist,  mother,  a  papist  you  would  have  remained  to  the 
end  of  your  clays.  'Tis  the  religion  of  the  King  and  of  some 
of  the  best  quality.  For  my  part,  I'm  no  enemy  to  it,  and 
think  Queen  Bess  was  not  a  penny  better  than  Queen  Mary.°" 

"Hush,   Beatrix!     Do   not   jest   with   sacred  things,   and  20 
remember  of  what   parentage   you    come,"   cries   my  lady. 
Beatrix  was  ordering  her  ribbons,  and  adjusting  her  tucker, 
and  performing  a  dozen  pro vokingly  pretty  ceremonies,  before 
the  glass.     The  girl  was  no  hypocrite  at  least.     She  never 
at  that  time  could  be  brought  to  think  but  of  the  world  and  25 
her  beauty;   and  seemed  to  have  no  more  sense  of  devotion 
than  some  people  have  of   musick,  that  cannot  distinguish 
one  air  from  another.     Esmond  saw   this   fault  in  her,  as 
he  saw  miany  others  —  a  bad  wife  would  Beatrix  Esm.ond 
make,  he  thought,  for  any  man  under  the  degree  of  a  Prince.  30 
She  v\^as  born  to  shine  in  great  assemblies,   and  to  adorn 
palaces,  and  to  command  everywhere  —  to  conduct  an  intrigue 
of  politicks,  or  to   glitter  in   a   queen's   train.     But   to  sit 
at  a  homely  table,  and  mend  the  stockings  of  a  poor  man's 
children?    that  was  no  fitting  duty  for  her,  or  at  least  one  35 
that  she  wouldn't  have  broke  her  heart   in   trying  to  do. 
She  was  a  princess,  though  she  had  scarce  a  shilling  to  her 
fortune ;    and  one   of  her  subjects  —  the   most    abject    and 
devoted  wretch,  sure,  that  ever  drivelled  at  a  woman's  knees 


356  HENRY  ESMOND 

—  was  this  unlucky  gentleman ;  who  bound  his  good  sense 
and  reason,  and  independence,  hand  and  foot;  and  sub- 
mitted them  to  her. 

And  who  does  not  know  how  ruthlessly  women  will  tyran- 
5  nise  when  they  are  let  to  domineer?  and  who  does  not  know 
how  useless  advice  is?  I  could  give  good  counsel  to  my 
descendants,  but  I  know  they'll  follow  their  own  way,  for 
all  their  grandfather's  sermon.  A  man  gets  his  own  expe- 
rience about  women,  and  will  take  nobody's  hearsay ;    nor, 

10  indeed,  is  the  5'oung  fellow  worth  a  fig  that  would.  'Tis  I 
that  am  in  love  with  my  mistress,  not  my  old  grandmother 
that  counsels  me;  'tis  I  that  have  fixeci  the  value  of  the 
thing  I  would  have,  and  know  the  price  I  would  pay  for  it. 
It  may  be  worthless  to  you,  but  'tis  all  my  life  to  me.     Had 

15  Esmond  possessed  the  Great  Mogul's  crown  and  all  his  dia- 
monds, or  all  the  Duke  of  ]\Iarlborough's  money,  or  all  the 
ingots  sunk  at  Vigo,  he  would  have  given  them  all  for  this 
woman.  A  fool  he  was,  if  you  will ;  but  so  is  a  sovereign  a 
fool,  that  will  give  half  a  principality  for  a  little  crystal  as 

20  big  as  a  pigeon's  egg,  and  called  a  diamond :  so  is  a  wealthy 
nobleman  a  fool,  that  will  face  danger  or  death,  and  spend 
half  his  life,  and  all  his  tranquillity,  caballing  for  a  blue 
ribbon ;  so  is  a  Dutch  merchant  a  fool,  that  hath  been 
known  to  pay  ten  thousand  crowns  for  a  tulip. °     There's 

25  some  particular  prize  we  all  of  us  value,  and  that,  every 
man  of  spirit  will  venture  his  life  for.  With  this  it  may  be  to 
achieve  a  great  reputation  for  learning ;  with  that,  to  be  h 
man  of  fashion,  and  the  admiration  of  the  town;  with 
another,   to   consummate  a  great  work  of  art  or  poetry, ° 

30  and  go  to  immortality  that  way ;    and  with  another,  for  a 

certain  time  of  his  life,  the  sole  objoct  and  aim  is  a  woman. 

Whilst  l']smond  was  mider  the  domination  of  this  passion,  he 

remembers  many  a  talk  he  had  with  his  intimates,  who  used 

to  rally  Our  Knight  of  the  Ilueful  Countenance  at  his  devo- 

35  tion,  whereof  he  made  no  disguise,  to  Beatrix;  and  it  was 
with  replies  such  as  the  above  he  met  his  friends'  satire. 
"(Iranted,  I  am  a  fool,"  says  he,  ''and  no  better  than  you; 
but  you  are  no  better  than  I.  You  have  your  Tolly  you  labour 
for;   give  me  the  charity  of  mine.     What  flatteries  do  you, 


HENRY    ESMOND  357 

Mr.  St.  John,°  stoop  to  whisper  in  the  ears  of  a  queen's  fa- 
vourite ?  What  nights  of  labour  doth  not  the  laziest  man  in 
the  world  endure,  forgoing  his  bottle,  and  his  boon  com- 
panions, foi^oing  Lais,°  in  whose  lap  he  would  like  to  be 
yawning,  that  he  may  prepare  a  speech  full  of  lies,  to  cajole  c, 
three  hundred  stupid  country-gentlemen  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  and  get  the  hiccupping  cheers  of  the  October 
Club?  What  clays  will  you  spend  in  your  jolting  chariot?" 
(Mr.  Esmond  often  rode  to  Windsor,  and  especially,  of  later 
days,  with  the  Secretary.)  "What  hours  will  you  pass  on  ic 
your  gouty  feet,  —  and  how  humbly  will  you  kneel  down  to 
present  a  despatch  —  you,  the  proudest  man  in  the  world, 
that  has  not  knelt  to  God  since  you  were  a  boy,  and  in  that 
posture  whisper,  flatter,  adore  almost,  a  stupid  woman,  that's 
often  boozy  with  too  much  meat  and  drink,  when  Mr.  Sec-  15 
retary  goes  for  his  audience  ?  If  my  pursuit  is  vanity,  sure 
yours  is  too."  And  then  the  Secretary  v/ould  fly  out  in  such 
a  rich  flow  of  eloquence,  as  this  pen  cannot  pretend  to  recall ; 
advocating  his  scheme  of  ambition,  showing  the  great  good 
he  would  do  for  his  country  when  he  was  the  undisputed  20 
chief  of  it ;  backing  his  opinion  with  a  score  of  pat  sentences 
from  Greek  and  Roman  authorities  (of  which  kind  of  learn- 
ing he  made  rather  an  ostentatious  display),  and  scornfully 
vaunting  the  very  arts  and  meannesses  by  which  fools  were 
to  be  made  to  follow  him,  opponents  to  be  bribed  or  silenced,  25 
doubters  converted,  and  enemies  overawed. 

*'I  am  Diogenes,°"  says  Esmond,  laughing,  "that  is  taken 
up  for  a  ride  in  Alexander's  chariot.  I  have  no  desire  to 
vanquish  Darius  or  to  tame  Bucephalus.  I  do  not  want 
what  you  want,  a  great  name  or  a  high  place :  to  have  them  30 
would  bring  me  no  pleasure.  But  my  moderation  is  taste, 
not  virtue;  and  I  know  that  what  I  do  want,  is  as  vain  as 
that  which  you  long  after.  Do  not  grudge  me  my  vanity, 
if  I  allow  yours ;  or  rather,  let  us  laugh  at  both  indifferently, 
and  at  ourselves,  and  at  each  other."  35 

"If  your  charmer  holds  out,"  says  St.  John,  "at  this  rate 
she  may  keep  you  twenty  years  besieging  her,  and  surrender 
by  the  time  you  are  seventy,  and  she  is  old  enough  to  be  a 
grandmother.     I   do   not   say   the   pursuit   of   a   particular 


358  HENRY   ESMOND 

woman  is  not  as  pleasant  a  pastime  as  any  other  kind   oi 

hunting,"  he  added;    "only,  for  my  part,  I  find  the  game 

won't    run    long   enough.     They    knock    under   too  soon  — 

that's  the  fault  I  find  with  'em." 

5       "The  game  which  you  pursue  is  in  the  habit  of  being 

caught,  and  used  to  being  pulled  down,"  says  Mr.  Esmond. 

"But   Dulcinea   del  Toboso°   is   peerless,   eh?"   says  the 

other.     "  Well,   honest  Harry,   go  and  attack  windmills  — 

perhaps  thou  art  not  more  mad  than  other  people,"  St.  John 

10  added,  with  a  sigh. 

CHAPTER  HI 

A   PAPER   OUT    OF   THE    "SPECTATOR" 

Doth  any  young  gentleman  of  my  progeny,  who  may  read 
his  old  grandfather's  papers,  chance  to  be  presently  suffering 
under  the  passion  of  Love?  There  is  a  humiliating  cure, 
but  one  that  is  easy  and  almost  specifick  for  the  malady  — 

15  which  is,  to  try  an  alibi. °  Esmond  went  away  from  his 
mistress  and  was  cured  a  half-dozen  times;  he  came  back 
to  her  side,  and  instantly  fell  ill  aga'in  of  the  fever.  He 
vowed  that  he  could  leave  her  and  think  no  more  of  her,  and 
so  he  could  ]3retty  well,  at  least,  succeed  in  quelling  that  rage 

20  and  longing  he  had  whenever  he  was  with  her;  but  as  soon 
as  he  returned  he  was  as  bad  as  ever  again.  Truly  a  ludicrous 
and  pitial)le  object,  at  least  exhausting  everybody's  pity  but 
his  clearest  mistress's.  Lady  Castlewood's,  in  whose  tender 
breast  he  reposed  all  his  dreary  confessions,  and  who  never 

25  tired  of  hearing  him  and  pleading  for  liim. 

Sometimes  Esmond  would  think  there  was  hope.  Then 
jigain  he  would  be  plagued  with  despair,  at  some  impertinence 
or  coquetry  of  his  mistress.  For  days  they  would  be  like 
broth(^r  and  sister,  or  the  dearest  friends,  she,  simj)le,  fond 

30  and  charming,  he  happy  beyond  measure  at  her  good  be- 
liaviour.  Jiut  this  would  all  vanish  on  a  sudden.  Either 
he  would  be  too  pressing,  and  hint  his  love,  when  she  would 
rebuff  him  instantly,  and  give  his  vanity  a  box  on  the  ear: 


HENRY    ESMOND  359 

or  he  would  be  jealous,  and  with  perfect  good  reason,  of  some 
new  admirer  that  had  sprung  up,  or  some  rich  young  gentle- 
man newly  arrived  in  the  town,  that  this  incorrigible  flirt 
would  set  her  nets  and  baits  to  draw  in.  If  Esmond  remon- 
strated, the  httle  rebel  would  say  —  "Who  are  you?  I  shall  5 
go  my  own  way,  sirrah,  and  that  w^ay  is  towards  a  husband, 
and  i  don't  want  you  on  the  way.  I  am  for  your  betters, 
Coionel,  for  your  betters  :  do  you  hear  that?  You  might  do 
if  you  had  an  estate  and  were  younger;  only  eight  years 
older  than  I,  you  say?  pish,  you  are  a  hundred  years  older.  10 
You  are  an  old,  old  Graveairs,  and  I  should  make  you  miser- 
able, that  would  be  the  only  comfort  I  should  have  in  mar- 
rying you.  But  you  have  not  money  enough  to  keep  a  cat 
decently  after  you  have  paid  your  man  his  wages,  and  your 
landlady  her  bill.  Do  you  think  I'm  going  to  live  in  a  lodging,  15 
and  turn  the  mutton  al  a  string  whilst  your  honour  nurses 
the  baby?  Fiddlestick,  and  why  did  you  not  get  this  non- 
sense knocked  out  of  j^our  head  when  you  were  in  the  wars  ? 
You  are  come  back  more  dismal  and  dreary  than  ever.  You 
and  mamma  °  are  fit  for  each  other.  You  might  be  Darby  20 
and  Joan,°  and  play  cribbage  to  the  end  of  your  lives." 

"At  least  you  own  to  your  worldliness,  my  poor  Trix," 
says  her  mother. 

"Worldliness  —  oh,  my  pretty  lady!  Do  you  think  that 
I  am  a  child  in  the  nursery,  and  to  be  frightened  by  Bogey?  25 
Worldliness,  to  be  sure ;  and  pray,  madam,  where  is  the  harm 
cf  wishing  to  be  comfortable?  When  j^ou  are  gone,  you 
dearest  old  woman,  or  when  I  am  tired  of  you  and  have  run 
away  from  you,  where  shall  I  go?  Shall  I  go  and  be  head 
nurse  to  my  Popish  sister-in-law,  take  the  children  their  3a 
physick,  and  whip  'em,  and  put  'em  to  bed  when  they  are 
naughty?  Shall  I  be  Castle  wood's  upper  servant,  and  per- 
haps marry  Tom  Tusher  ?  Merci  ° !  I  have  been  long 
enough  Frank's  humble  servant.  Why  am  I  not  a  man? 
I  have  ten  times  his  brains,  and  had  I  worn  the  —  well,  don't  35 
let  3^our  ladyship  be  frightened  —  had  I  worn  a  sword  and 
perriwig  instead  of  this  mantle  and  commode,  to  which  nature 
has  condemned  me  —  (though  'tis  a  pretty  stuff,  too  — 
cousin  Esmond  !  you  will  go  to  the  Exchange  to-morrow,  and 


360  HENRY   ESMOND 

get  the  exact  counterpart  of  this  ribbon,  sir,  do  you  hear?)  — 
I  would  have  made  our  name  talked  about.  So  would  Grave- 
airs  here  have  made  something  out  of  our  name  if  he  had 
represented  it.  My  Lord  Graveairs  would  have  done  very 
5  well.  Yes,  you  have  a  very  pretty  way,  and  would  have 
made  a  very  decent  grave  speaker,"  and  here  she  began  to 
imitate  Esmond's  way  of  carrying  himself,  and  speaking  to 
his  face,  and  so  ludicrously,  that  his  mistress  burst  out 
a-laughing,  and  even  he  himself   could  see  there  was  some 

10  likeness  in  the  fantastical  malicious  caricature. 

"Yes,"  says  she,  "I  solemnly  vow,  own  and  confess,  that 
I  want  a  good  husband.  Where's  the  harm  of  one  ?  My  face 
is  my  fortune.  Who'll  come,  buy,  buy,  buy!  I  cannot  toil, 
neither  can  I  spin,  but  I  can  play  twenty-three  games  on  the 

25  cards.  I  can  dance  the  last  dance,  I  can  hunt  the  stag,  and 
I  think  I  could  shoot  flying.  I  can  talk  as  wicked  as  any 
woman  of  my  years,  and  know  enough  stories  to  amuse  a 
sulky  husband  for  at  least  one  thousand  and  one  nights.  I 
have  a  pretty  taste  for  dress,  diamonds,  gambling,  and  old 

20  China.  I  love  sugar-plums,  Malines  lace  (that  you  brought 
me,  cousin,  is  very  pretty),  the  opera,  and  everything  that 
is  useless  and  costly.'  I  have  got  a  monkey°  and  a  little 
black  boy  —  Pompey,  sir,  go  and  give  a  dish  of  chocolate  to 
Colonel  Graveairs,  —  and  a  parrot  and  a  spaniel,  and  I  must 

25  have  a  husband.     Cupid,°  you  hear?" 

''Iss  Missis,"  says  Pompey,  a  little  grinning  negro  Lord 
Peterborow°  gave  her,  with  a  bird  of  Paradise  in  his  turbant : 
and  a  collar  with  his  mistress's  name  on  it. 

"Iss  Missis!"  says  Beatrix,  imitating  the  child.     "And  if 

30  husband  not  come,  Pompey  must  go  fetch  one." 

And  Pompey  went  away  grinning  with  his  chocolate  tray, 
as  Miss  Jieatrix  ran  up  to  her  mother  and  ended  her  sally  of 
mischief  in  her  common  way,  with  a  kiss  —  no  wonder  that 
upon  paying  such  a  penalty  her  fond  judge  pardoned  her. 

35  When  Mr.  Esmond  came  home,  his  health  was  still  shat- 
tered ,  and  he  took  a  lodging  near  to  his  mistresses,  at  Ken- 
sington, glad  enough  to  be  served  by  them,  and  to  see  them 
day  after  day.     He  was  enabled  to  see  a  little  company  — 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  361 

and  of  the  sort  he  hked  best.  Mr.  Steele  and  Mr.  Addison 
both  did  him  the  honour  to  visit  him ;  and  drank  many  a 
glass  of  good  claret  at  his  lodging,  whilst  their  entertainer, 
through  his  wound,  was  kept  to  diet  drink  and  gruel.  These 
gentlemen  were  Whigs,  and  great  admirers  of  my  Lord  Duke  5 
of  Marlborough;  and  Esmond  was  entirely  of  the  other 
party.  But  their  different  views  of  politicks  did  not  prevent 
the  gentlemen  from  agreeing  in  private,  nor  from  allowing, 
on  one  evening  when  Esmond's  kind  old  patron,  Lieutenant- 
General  Webb,  with  a  stick  and  a  crutch,  hobbled  up  to  the  10 
Colonel's  lodging  (which  was  prettily  situate  at  Knights- 
bridge,  between  London  and  Kensington,  and  looking  over 
the  Gardens),  that  the  Lieutenant-General  was  a  noble  and 
gallant  soldier,  —  and  even  that  he  had  been  hardly  used  in 
the  Wynendael  affair.  He  took  his  revenge  in  talk,  that  15 
must  be  confessed;  and  if  J\Ir.  Addison  had  had  a  mind  to 
write  a  poem  about  Wynendael,  he  might  have  heard  from 
the  commander's  own  lips  the  story  a  hundred  times  over. 

Mr.  Esmond,  forced  to  be  quiet,  betook  himself  to  literature 
for  a  relaxation,  and  composed  his  comedy,  whereof  the  20 
prompter's  copy  lieth  in  my  walnut  escrutoire,°  sealed  up 
and  docketed  "The  Faithful  Fool,  a  Comedy,°  as  it  was 
performed  by  her  Majesty's  Servants."  'Twas  a  very  senti- 
mental piece ;  and  Mr.  Steele,  who  had  more  of  that  kind  of 
sentiment  than  Mr.  Addison,  admired  it,  whilst  the  other  25 
rather  sneered  at  the  performance;  though  he  owned  that, 
here  and  there,  it  contained  some  pretty  strokes.  He  was 
bringing  out  his  own  play  of  Cato  at  the  time,  the  blaze  of 
which  quite  extinguished  Esmond's  farthing  candle :  and 
his  name  was  never  put  to  the  piece,  which  was  printed  as  by  30 
a  Person  of  Qualit}^  Only  nine  copies  w^ere  sold,  though 
Mr.  Dennis,°  the  great  critick,  praised  it,  and  said  'twas  a 
work  of  great  merit;  and  Colonel  Esmond  had  the  whole 
impression  burned  one  day  in  a  rage,  by  Jack  Lockwood,  his 
man.      _  ^  35 

All  this  comedy  was  full  of  bitter  satyrick  strokes  against  a 
certain  young  lad}^  The  plot  of  the  piece  was  quite  a  new 
one.  A  young  woman  was  represented  with  a  great  number 
of  suitors,  selecting  a  pert  fribble  of  a  peer,  in  place  of  the 


362  HENRY   ESMOND 

hero  (but  ill-acted,  I  think,  by  Mr.  Wilks,  the  Faithful  Fool), 
who  persisted  in  admiring  her.  In  the  fifth  act,  Teraminta 
was  made  to  discover  the  merits  of  Eugenio  (the  F.  F.),  and 
to  feel  a  partiahty  for  him  too  late  ;  for  he  announced  that  he 

5  had  bestowed  his  hand  and  estate  upon  Rosaria,  a  country 
lass,  endowed  with  every  ^drtue.  But  it  must  be  owned  that 
the  audience  yawned  through  the  play ;  and  that  it  perished 
on  the  third  night,  with  only  half  a  dozen  persons  to  behold 
its  agonies.     Esmond  and  his  two  mistresses  came  to  the  first 

10  night,  and  iMiss  Beatrix  fell  asleep ;  whilst  her  mother,  who 
had  not  been  to  a  play  since  King  James  the  Second's  time, 
thought  the  piece,  though  not  brilliant,  had  a  very  pretty 
moral. 

Mr.  Esmond  dabbled  in  letters,  and  wrote  a  deal  of  prose 

15  and  verse  at  this  time  of  leisure.  When  displea;sed  with  the 
conduct  of  Miss  Beatrix,  he  would  compose  a  satyre,  in  which 
he  relieved  his  mind.  When  smarting  under  the  faithlessness 
of  women,  he  dashed  off  a  copy  of  verses,  in  which  he  held 
the  whole  sex  up  to  scorn.     One  day,  in  one  of  these  moods, 

20  he  made  a  little  joke,  in  which  (swearing  him  to  secrecy)  he 
got  his  friend  Dick  Steele  to  help  him ;  and,  composing 
a  paper,  he  had  it  printed  exactly  like  Steele's  paper,  and 
by  his  printer,  and  laid  on  his  mistress's  breakfast-table  the 
following :  — 

25  "  Spectator. 

"  No.  341.  Tuesday,  April  1,  1712. 

Mutato  nomine  de  te  Fabula  narratur,  —  Horace.° 

Thyself  the  moral  of  the  Fable  see.  —  Creech  .° 

'Mocasta°  is  known  as  a  woman  of  learning  and  fashion, 
30  and  as  one  of  the  most  amiable  persons  of  this  court  and  coun- 
try. She  is  at  home  two  mornings  of  the  week,  and  all  the 
wits  and  a  few  of  the  beauties  of  London  flock  to  her  assem- 
blies. When  she  goes  abroad  to  Tunbiidge  or  the  Bath,°  a 
retinue  of  adorers  rides  the  journey  with  her;  and,  besides 
35  the  London  beaux,  she  has  a  crowd  of  admirers  at  the  Wells, 
the  polite  amongst  the  natives  of  Sussex  and  Somerset  press- 
ing round  her  tea-tables,  and  being  anxious  for  a  nod  from 
her  chair.     Jocasta's  acquaintance  is  thus  very  numerous. 


HENRY   ESMOND  363 

Indeed,  'tis  one  smart  writer's  work  to  keep  her  visiting-book 
—  a  strong  footman  is  engaged  to  carry  it ;  and  it  would 
require  a  much  stronger  head,  even  than  Jocasta's  own,  to 
remember  the  names  of  all  her  dear  friends. 

"Either  at  Epsom  Wells°  or  at  Tunbridge  (for  of  this  im-  5 
portant  matter  Jocasta  cannot  be  certain)  it  was  her  lady-     • 
ship's  fortune  to  become  acquainted  with  a  young  gentleman, 
whose  conversation  was  so  sprightly,  and  manners  amiable, 
that  she  invited  the  agreeable  young   spark  to  visit  her   if 
ever  he  came  to  London,  where  her  house  in  Spring  Garden°  10 
should  be  open  to  him.     Charming  as  he  was,  and  without 
any  manner  of  doubt  a  pretty  fellow,  Jocasta  hath  such  a 
regiment  of  the  like  continually  marching  round  her  standard, 
that  'tis  no  wonder  her  attention  is  distracted  amongst  them. 
And  so,  though  this  gentleman  made  a  considerable  impres-  15 
sion  upon  her,  and  touched  her  heart  for  at  least  three-ancl- 
twenty  minutes,  it  must  be  owned  that  she  has  forgotten  his 
name.     He  is  a  dark  man,  and  may  be  eight-and-twenty 
years  old.     His  dress  is  sober,  though  of  rich  materials.     He 
has  a  mole  on  his  forehead  over  his  left  eye;    has  a  blue  20 
ribbon°  to  his  cane  and  sword,  and  wears  his  own  hair.° 

'•Jocasta  was  much  flattered  by  beholding  her  adinirer  (for 
that  everybody  admires  who  sees  her  is  a  point  which  she 
never  can  for  a  moment  doubt)  in  the  next  pew  to  her  at  Saint 
James's  Church°  last  Sunday;  and  the  manner  in  which  he  25 
appeared  to  go  to  sleep  during  the  sermon  —  though  from 
under  his  fringed  eyelids  it  was  evident  he  was  casting  glances 
of  respectful  raj^ture  towards  Jocasta  —  deeply  mo\-ed  and 
interested  her.  On  coming  out  of  church,  he  found  his  way 
to  hei"  chair,  and  made  her  an  elegant  bow  as  she  stepped  30 
into  it.  She  saw  him  at  Court  afterwards,  where  he  carried 
himself  w^th  a  most  distinguished  air,  though  none  of  her 
acc^uaintances  knew  his  name ;  and  the  next  night  he  was  at 
the  play,  where  her  ladyship  was  pleased  to  acknowledge  him 
from  the  side-box.  35 

"During  the  w^hole  of  the  comedy  she  racked  her  brains  so 
to  remember  his  name,  that  she  did  not  hear  a  word  of  the 
piece  :  and  having  the  happiness  to  meet  him  once  more  in 
the  lobby  of  the  playhouse,  she  went  up  to  him  in  a  flutter, 


364  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  bade  him  remember  that  she  kept  two  nights  in  the  week^ 
and  that  she  longed  to  see  him  at  Spring  Garden. 

"He  appeared  on  Tuesday,  in  a  rich  suit,  showing  a  very 
fine  taste  both  in  the  tailor  and  w^earer ;  and  though  a  knot 
5  of  us  were  gathered  round  the  charming  Jocasta,  fellows  who 
pretended  to  know  every  face  upon  the  town,  not  one  could 
tell  the  gentleman's  name  in  reply  to  Jocasta 's  eager  inquiries, 
flung  to  the  right  and  left  of  her  as  he  advanced  up  the  room 
with  a  bow  that  would  become  a  duke. 

to  ''Jocasta  acknowledged  this  salute  with  one  of  those 
smiles  and  curtsies  of  which  that  lady  hath  the  secret. 
She  curtsies  with  a  languishing  air,  as  if  to  say,  'You  are 
come  at  last.  I  have  been  pining  for  you:'  and  then  she 
finishes    her    victim    with    a    killing   look,    which    declares : 

15  'O  Philander  °i  I  have  no  eyes  but  for  you.'  Camilla  hath 
as  good  a  curtsey  perhaps,  and  Thalestris  much  such  another 
look;  but  the  glance  and  the  curtsey  together  belong  to 
Jocasta  of  all  the  English  beauties  alone. 

'"Welcome  to  London,  sir,'  says  she.     'One  can  see  you 

20  are  from  the  country  by  your  looks.'  She  would  have 
said  'Epsom,'  or  'Tunbridge,'  had  she  remembered  rightly 
at  which  place  she  had  met  the  stranger ;  but,  alas !  she  had 
forgotten. 

"The  gentleman  said   'he  had  been  in   town  but  three 

25  days;  and  one  of  his  reasons  for  coming  hither  was  to  have 
the  honour  of  paying  his  court  to  Jocasta.' 

"She  said  'the  waters  had  agreed  with  her  bu';  indiffer- 
ently.' 

"'The  waters   were   for   the  sick,'  the  gentleman    said: 

30  'the  young  and  beautiful  came  but  to  make  them  sparkle. 
And,  as  the  clergyman  read  the  service  on  Sunday,'  he 
added,  'your  ladyship  reminded  me  of  the  angel  that  visited 
the  pool.'  A  murmur  of  approbation  saluted  this  sally. 
Manilio,  who  is  a  wit  when  he  is  not  at  cards,  was  in  such  a 

75  rage  that  he  revoked  when  he  heard  it. 

"Jocasta  was  an  angel  visiting  the  waters;  but  at  which 
of  the  Bethesdas°  ?  She  was  puzzled  more  and  more ;  and, 
as  her  way  always  is,  looked  the  more  innocent  and  simple, 
the  more  artful  her  intentions  were. 


HENRY   ESMOND  365 

"'We  were  discoursing,'  says  she,  'about  spelling  of 
names  and  words  when  you  came.  Why  should  we  say 
goold°  and  write  gold,  and  call  china  chayny,  and  Caven- 
dish Candish,  and  Cholmondeley  Chumley?  If  we  call 
Pulteney  Poltney,  why  shouldn't  we  call  poultry  pultry  —  5 
and ' 

"'Such  an  enchantress  as  your  ladyship/  says  he,  'is 
mistress  of  all  sorts  of  spells.'  But  this  was  Dr.  Swift's 
pun,  and  we  all  knew  it. 

'"And  —  and  how  do  you  spell  your  name?'    says   she,  ic 
coming  to  the  point,  at  length;   for  this  sprightly  conversa- 
tion had  lasted  much  longer  than  is  here  set  down,  and  been 
carried  on  through  at  least  three  dishes  of  tea. 

"'Oh,  madam,'  says   he,  '/  spell    my  name   with   the   y.' 
And   laying  down   his   dish,   my   gentleman   made   another  15 
elegant  bow,  and  was  gone  in  a  moment. 

"Jocasta  hath  had  no  sleep  since  this  mortification,  and 
the  stranger's  disappearance.  If  baulked  in  anything,  she 
is  sure  to  lose  her  health  and  temper ;  and  we,  her  servants, 
suffer,  as  usual,  during  the  angry  fits  of  our  Queen.  Can  you  20 
help  us,  Mr.  Spectator,  who  know  e\'erything,  to  read  this 
riddle  for  her,  and  set  at  rest  all  our  minds?  We  find  in 
her  list,  Mr.  Berty,  Mr.  Smith,  Mr.  Pike,  Mr.  Tyler  —  who 
may  be  Mr.  Bertie,  Mr.  Smyth,  Mr.  Pyke,  Mr.  Tiler,  for 
what  we  know.  She  hath  turned  away  the  clerk  of  her  25 
\isiting-book,  a  poor  fellow,  with  a  great  family  of  children. 
Read  me  this  riddle,  good  Mr.  Shortface,  and  oblige  your 
admirer,  — 

"CEdipus." 

"The  Trumpet  Coffee-house,  Whitehall.  3° 
"'  Mr.  Spectator  —  I  am  a  gentleman  but  little  acquainted 
with  the  town,  though  I  have  had  an  university  education, 
and  passed  some  years  serving  my  country  abroad,  where 
my  name  is  better  known  than  in  the  coffee-houses  and  St. 
James's.  35 

"Two  years  since  my  uncle  died,  leaving  me  a  pretty 
estate  in  the  county  of  Kent ;  and  being  at  Tunbridge  Wells 
last  summer,  after  ray  mourning  was  over,  and  on  the  look- 


366  HENRY  ESMOND 

out,  if  truth  must  be  told,  for  some  young  lady  who  would 
share  with  m.e  the  solitude  of  my  great  Kentish  house,  and 
be  kind  to  my  tenantry  (for  whom  a  woman  can  do  a  great 
deal  more  good  than  the  best-intentioned  man  can),  I  was 

5  greatly  fascinated  by  a  young  lady  of  London,  who  was 
the  toast  of  all  the  company  at  the  Wells.  Every  one  knows 
Saccharissa's  beauty;  and  I  think,  Mr.  Spectator,  no  one 
better  than  herself. 

''My  table-book  informs  me  that  I  danced  no  less  than 

10  seven-and-twenty  sets  with  her  at  the  Assembly.  I  treated 
her  to  the  fiddles  twice.  I  was  admitted  on  several  days  at 
her  lodging,  and  received  by  her  with  a  great  deal  of  dis- 
tinction, and,  for  a  time,  was  entirely  her  slave.  It  was 
only  when  I  found,  from  common  talk  of  the  company  at 

.15  the  Wells,  and  from  narrowly  watching  one,  who  I  once 
thought  of  asking  the  most  sacred  question  a  man  can  put 
to  a  woman,  that  I  became  aware  how  unfit  she  was  to  be 
a  country  gentleman's  wife;  and  that  this  fair  creature 
was   but   a   heartless   worldly  jilt,    playing   with   affections 

20  that  she  never  meant  to  return,  and,  indeed,  incapable  of 
returning  them.  Tis  admiration  such  women  want,  not 
love  that  touches  them ;  and  I  can  conceive,  in  her  old  age, 
no  more  wretched  creature  than  this  lady  will  be,  when  her 
beauty  hath  deserted  her,  when  her  admirers  have  left  her, 

25  and  she  hath  neither  friendship  nor  religion  to  console 
her. 

"Business  calling  me  to  London,  I  went  to  St.  James's 
Church  last  Sunday,  and  there,  opposite  me,  sat  my  beauty 
of  the  Wells.     Her  behaviour  during  the  whole  service  was 

30  so  pert,  languishing,  and  absurd ;  she  flirted  her  fan,  and 
ogled  and  eyed  me  in  a  manner  so  indecent ;  that  I  was 
obliged  to  shut  my  eyes,  so  as  actually  not  to  sec  her,  and 
whenever  I  opened  them  beheld  hers  (and  very  bright  they 
are),  still  staring  at  me.     I  fell  in  with  her  afterwards  at 

35  Court,  and  at  the  playhouse;  and  here  nothing  would  satisfy 
her  but  she  must  ell)ow  through  the  crowd  and  speak  to  me, 
and  invite  me  to  the  assembly,  which  she  holds  at  her  house, 
not  very  far  from  Ch-r-ng  Cr-ss. 

"Having  made  her  a  promise  to  attend,  of  course  I  kept 


HENRY   ESMOND  367 

my  promise ;  and  found  the  young  widow  in  the  midst  of  a 
half-dozen  of  card-tables,  and  a  crowd  of  wits  and  admirers. 
I  made  the  best  bow  I  could,  and  advanced  towards  her ; 
and  saw  by  a  peculiar  puzzled  look  in  her  face,  though  she 
tried  to  hide  her  perplexity,  that  she  had  forgotten  even  my  5 
name. 

*'  Her  talk,  artful  as  it  was,  convinced  me  that  I  had  guessed 
aright.  She  turned  the  conversation  most  ridiculously  ujx)n 
the  spelling  of  names  and  w^ords;  and  I  replied  with  as 
ridiculous,  fulsome  compliments  as  I  could  pay  her :  indeed,  xz 
one  in  which  I  compared  her  to  an  angel  visiting  the  sick 
wells,  went  a  Httle  too  far;  nor  should  I  have  employed  it, 
but  that  the  allusion  came  from  the  Second  Lesson  last 
Sunday,  which  we  both  had  heard,  and  I  was  pressed  to  answer 
her.  15 

''Then  she  came  to  the  question,  which  I  knew  was  await- 
ing me,  and  asked  how  I  spelt  my  name?  'Madam,' 
says  I,  turning  on  my  heel,  'I  spell  it  wath  the  ?/.'  And 
so  I  left  her,  wondering  at  the  light-heartedness  of  the  town- 
people,  who  forget  and  make  friends  so  easily,  and  resolved  20 
to  look  elsewhere  for  a  partner  for  your  constant  reader, 

"  Cymon  Wyldoats. 

"You  know  my  real  name,  Mr.  Spectator,  in  which  there 
is  no  such  a  letter  as  hupsilon.°     But  if  the  lady,  whom  I 
have    called   Saccharissa,   wonders   that  I   appear  no  more  25 
at  the  tea-tables,  she  is  hereby   respectfully   informed   the 
reason  y." 

The  above  is  a  parable,  whereof  the  writer  will  now  ex- 
pound the  meaning.  Jocasta  was  no  other  than  Miss  Esmond, 
Maid  of  Honour  to  her  Majesty.  She  had  told  Mr.  Esmond  3^ 
this  little  story  of  ha\'ing  met  a  gentleman  somewhere,  and 
forgetting  his  name,  when  the  gentleman,  with  no  such 
maUcious  intentions  as  those  of  "Cymon"  in  the  above 
fable,  made  the  answer  simply  as  above ;  and  we  all  laughed 
to  think  how  Uttle  Mistress  Jocasta-Beatrix  had  profited  35 
by  her  artifice  and  precautions. 

As  for  Cymon  he  was  intended  to  represent  yours  and  her 


368  HENRY   ESMOND 

very  humble  servant,  the  writer  of  the  apologue  and  of  thii 
story,  which  we  had  printed  on  a  Spectator  paper*  at  Mr. 
Steele's  office,  exactly  as  those  famous  journals  were  printed, 
and  which  was  laid  on  the  table  at  breakfast  in  place  of  the 

5  real  newspaper.  Mistress  Jocasta,  who  had  plenty  of  wit, 
could  not  live  without  her  Spectator  to  her  tea ;  and  this 
sham  Spectator  was  intended  to  convey  to  the  young  woman 
that  she  herself  was  a  flirt,  and  that  Cymon  was  a  gentleman 
of  honour  and  resolution,   seeing  all  her  faults,  and  deter- 

10  mined  to  break  the  chains  once  and  for  ever. 

For  though  enough  hath  been  said  about  this  love-business 
already  —  enough,  at  least,  to  prove  to  the  writer's  heirs 
what  a  silly  fond  fool  their  old  grandfather  was,  who  would 
like  them  to  consider  him  as  a  very  wise  old  gentleman ;  — 

15  yet  not  near  all  has  been  told  concerning  this  matter,  which 
if  it  were  allowed  to  take  in  Esmond's  journal  the  space 
it  occupied  in  his  time,  would  weary  his  kinsmen  and  women 
of  a  hundred  years'  time  beyond  all  endurance;  and  form 
such  a  Diary  of  folly  and  drivelling,  raptures  and  rage,  as  no 

20  man  of  ordinary  vanity  would  like  to  leave  behind  him. 

The  truth  is,  that,  whether  she  laughed  at  him  or  encour- 
aged him;  whether  she  smiled  or  was  cold  and  turned 
her  smiles  on  another ;  worldly  and  ambitious,  as  he  knew  her 
to  be;    hard  and  careless  as  she  seemed  to  grow  with  her 

25  Court  Ufe,  and  a  hundred  admirers  that  came  to  her  and 
left  her ;  Esmond,  do  what  he  would,  never  could  get  Beatrix 
out  of  his  mind ;  thought  of  her  constantly  at  home  or  away : 
if  he  read  his  name  in  a  Gazette,  or  escaped  the  shot  of  a  can- 
non-ball or  a  greater  danger  in  the  camj)aign,  as  has  happened 

30  to  him  more  than  once,  the  instant  thought  after  the  lionour 
achieved  or  the  danger  avoided  was,  "  What  will  she  say 
of  it?"  "Will  this  distinction  or  the  idea  of  this  peril  elate 
her  or  touch  her,  so  as  to  be  better  inclined  towartls  me?" 
He  could  no  more  help  this  passionate  fidelity  of  temper  than 

35  he  could  help  the  eyes  he  saw  with  —  one  or  the  other 
seemed  a  part  of  his  nature ;  and  knowing  every  one  of  her 
faults  as  well  as  the  keenest  of  her  detractors,  and  the  folly 
of  an  attachment  to  such  a  woman,  of  which  the  fruition 
could  never  bring  him  happiness  for  above  a  week,  there 


HENRY   ESMOND  369 

was  yet  a  charm  about  this  Circe °  from  which  the  poor 
deluded  gentleman  could  not  free  himself;  and,  for  a  much 
longer  period  than  Ulysses  (another  middle-aged  officer, 
who  had  travelled  much,  and  been  in  the  foreign  wars), 
Esmond  felt  himself  enthralled  and  besotted  by  the  wiles  5 
of  this  enchantress.  Quit  her !  He  could  no  more  quit  her, 
as  the  Cymon  of  this  story  was  made  to  quit  his  false  one, 
than  he  could  lose  his  consciousness  of  yesterday,  bhe  had 
but  to  raise  her  finger,  and  he  would  come  back  from  ever 
so  far;  she  had  but  to  say  I  have  discarded  such  and  such 
an  adorer,  and  the  poor  infatuated  wretch  would  be  sure  to 
come  and  rddcr°  about  her  mother's  house,  wilhng  to  be 
put  on  the  ranks  of  suitors,  thougli  he  knew  he  might  be 
cast  off  the  next  week.  If  he  were  like  Ulysses  in  his  folly,  at 
least  she  was  in  so  far  like  Penelope,  that  she  had  a  crowd  of  15 
suitors,  and  undid  day  after  day  and  night  after  night  the 
handiwork  of  fascination  and  the  web  of  coquetry  with  which 
she  was  wont  to  allure  and  entei'tain  them. 

Part  oi  her  coquetry  may  have  come  from  her  position 
about  the  Court,  where  the  beautiful  ^Nlaid  of  Honour  was  20 
the  light  about  w^hich  a  thousand  beaux  came  and  fluttered ; 
where  she  was  sure  to  have  a  ring  of  admirers  round  her, 
crowding  to  listen  to  her  repartees  as  much  r.s  to  admire 
her  beauty;  and  where  she  spoke  and  listened  to  much  free 
talk,  such  as  one  never  would  have  thought  the  lips  or  ears  25 
of  Rachel  Castle  wood's  daughter  would  have  uttered  or 
heard.  When  in  waiting  at  Wmdsor  or  Hampton,  the  Court 
ladies  or  gentlemen  would  be  making  riding  parties  to- 
gether; Mrs.  Beatrix  in  a  horseman's  coat  and  hat,  the 
foremost  after  the  stag-hounds  and  over  the  park  fences,  a  30 
crowd  of  young  fellows  at  her  heels.  If  the  English  country 
ladies  at  this  time  w^ere  the  most  pure  and  modest  of  any 
ladies  in  the  world  —  the  English  town  and  Court  ladies 
permitted  themselves  words  and  behaviour  that  were  neither 
modest  nor  pure;  and  claimed,  some  of  them,  a  freedom  35 
which  those  who  love  that  sex  most  would  never  wish  to 
grant  them.  The  gentlemen  of  my  family  that  follow  after 
me  (for  I  don't  encourage  the  ladies  to  pursue  any  such 
studies)  may  read  in  the  works  of  Mr.  Congreve,  and  Dr. 


370  HENRY   ESMOND 

Swift,   and   others,   what   was  the   conversation   and   what 
the  habits  of  our  time. 

The  most  beautiful  woman  in  England  in  1712,  when 
Esmond  returned  to  this  country,  a  lady  of  high  birth,  and 
5  though  of  no  fortune  to  be  sure,  with  a  thousand  fascinations 
of  wit  and  manners  —  Beatrix  Esmond  —  was  now  six- 
and-twenty  years  old,  and  Beatrix  Esmond  still.  Of  her 
hundred  adorers  she  had  not  chosen  one  for  a  husband; 
and  those  who  had  asked  had  been  jilted  by  her;   and  more 

lo  still  had  left  her.  A  succession  of  near  ten  5^ears'  crops  of 
beauties  had  come  up  since  heir  time,  and  had  been  reaped 
by  proper  husbajidmen,  if  we  may  make  an  agricultural 
simile,  and  had  been  housed  comfortably  long  ago.  Her 
own  contemporaries  were  sober  mothers  by  this  time;   girls 

15  with  not  a  tithe  of  her  charms,  or  her  wit,  having  made 
good  matches,  and  now  claiming  precedence  over  the  spinster 
who  but  lately  had  derided  and  outshone  them.  The 
young  beauties  were  beginning  to  look  down  on  Beatrix 
as  an  old  maid;   and  sneer,  and  call  her  one  of  Charles  II. 's 

20  ladies,  and  ask  whether  her  portrait  was  not  in  the  Hampton 
Court  Gallery°  ?  But  still  she  reigned,  at  least  in  one  man's 
opinion,  superior  over  all  the  little  misses  that  were  the  toasts 
of  the  young  lads;  and  in  Esmond's  eyes  was  ever  perfectly 
lovely  and  young. 

25  Who  knows  how  many  were  nearly  made  happy  by  pos- 
sessing her,  or,  rather,  how  many  were  fortunate  in  escaping 
this  syren?  'Tis  a  marvel  to  think  that  her  mother  was 
the  purest  and  simplest  woman  in  the  whole  world,  and 
that  this  girl  should  have  been  born  from  her.     I  am  inclined 

30  to  fancy,  my  mistress  who  never  said  a  harsh  word  to  her 
children  (and  but  twice  or  thrice  only  to  one  person),  must 
have  been  too  fond  and  pressing  with  the  maternal  authority; 
for  her  son  and  her  daughter  both  revolted  early ;  nor  after 
their  first  flight  from  the  nest  could  they  ever  be  brought 

35  back  quite  to  the  fond  mother's  bosom.  Lady  Castlewood, 
and  perhaps  it  was  as  well,  knew  little  of  her  daughter's 
life  and  real  thoughts.  How  was  she  to  apprehend  what 
passed  in  Queens'  antechambers  and  at  Court  tal)les?  Mrs. 
Beatrix  asserted  her  own  authority  so  resolutely  that  lier 


HENRY   ESMOND  371 

mother  quickly  gave  in.  The  Maid  of  Honour  had  her  own 
equipage ;  went  from  home  and  came  back  at  her  own  will : 
her  mother  was  alike  powerless  to  resist  her  or  to  lead  her, 
or  to  command  or  to  persuade  her. 

She  had  been  engaged  once,  twice,  thrice,  to  be  married,  5 
Esmond  believed.  When  he  quitted  home,  it  hath  been  said, 
she  was  promised  to  my  Lord  Ashburnham,  and  now,  on  his 
return,  behold  his  lordship  was  just  married  to  Lady  Mary 
Butler,  the  Duke  of  Ormonde's  daughter,  and  his  fine  houses, 
and  twelve  thousand  a  year  of  fortune,  for  which  Miss  Beatrix  10 
had  rather  coveted  him,  was  out  of  her  power.  To  her  Es- 
mond could  say  nothing  in  regard  to  the  breaking  of  this 
match ;  and  asking  his  mistress  about  it,  all  Lady  Castlewood 
answered  was:  "Do  not  speak  to  me  about  it,  Harry.  I 
cannot  tell  you  how  or  why  they  parted,  and  I  fear  to  enquire.  15 
I  have  told  you  before,  that  with  all  her  kindness,  and  wit, 
and  generosity,  and  that  sort  of  splendour  of  nature  she  has ; 
I  can  say  but  Kttie  good  of  poor  Beatrix,  and  look  with  dread 
at  the  marriage  she  will  form.  Her  mind  is  fixed  on  ambition 
only,  and  making  a  great  figure :  and,  this  achieA'ed,  she  will  20 
tire  of  it  as  she  does  of  everything.  Heaven  help  her  husband 
whoever  he  shall  be !  My  Lord  Ashburnham  was  a  most 
excellent  young  man,  gentle,  and  yet  manly,  of  \ery  good 
parts,  so  they  told  me,  and  as  my  little  conversation  would 
enable  me  to  judge ;  and  a  kind  temper  —  kind  and  enduring  25 
I  'm  sure  he  must  have  been,  from  all  that  he  had  to  endure.  But 
he  quitted  her  at  last;  from  some  crowning  piece  of  caprice 
or  tyranny  of  hers ;  and  now  he  has  married  a  A'oung  woman 
that  will  make  him  a  thousand  times  hapj^ier  than  my  poor 
girl  ever  could."  30 

The  rupture,  whatever  its  cause  was  (I  heard  the  scandal, 
but  indeed  shall  not  take  pains  to  repeat  at  length  in  this 
diary  the  trumpery  coffee-story),  caused  a  good  deal  of  low 
talk;  and  Mr.  Esmond  was  present  at  my  lord's  appearance 
at  the  Birthday  with  his  bride,  over  whom  the  revenge  that  35 
Beatrix  took  was  to  look  so  imperial  and  lovely  that  the 
modest  downcast  young  lady  could  not  appear  beside  her,  and 
Lord  Ashburnham,  who  had  his  reasons  for  wishing  to  avoid 
her,   slunk   away  quite  shamefaced,   and  very  early.     This 


372  HENRY    ESMOND 

time  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  whom  Esmond  had 
seen  about  her  before,  was  constant  at  Miss  Beatrix's* side. 
he  was  one  of  the  most  splendid  gentlemen  of  Europe,  ac- 
complished by  books,  by  travel,  by  long  command  of  the 
5  best  company,  distinguished  as  a  statesman,  having  been 
ambassador  in  King  William's  time,  and  a  noble  speaker  in 
the  Scots'  Parliament,  where  he  had  led  the  party  that  was 
against  the  Union,  and  though  now  five  or  six  and  forty  years 
of  age,  a  gentleman  so  high  in  stature,  accomplished  in  wit, 

10  and  favoured  in  person,  that  he  might  pretend  to  the  hand 
of  any  Princess  in  Europe. 

"Should  you  hke  the  Duke  for  a  cousin?"  says  Mr.  Secre- 
tary St.  John,  whispering  to  Colonel  Esmond  in  French;  "it 
appears  that  the  widower  consoles  himself." 

15  But  to  return  to  our  little  Spectator  paper  and  the  conver- 
sation which  grew  out  of  it.  Miss  Beatrix  at  first  was  quite 
hit  (as  the  phrase  of  that  day  was)  and  did  not  "smoke"  the 
authorship  of  the  story;  indeed  Esmond  had  tried  to  imitate 
as  well  as  he  could  Mr.  Steele's  manner  (as  for  the  other  author 

20  of  the  Spectator  his  prose  style  I  think  is  altogether  inimi- 
table°) ;  and  Dick,  who  was  the  idlest  and  best  natured  of 
men,  would  have  let  the  piece  pass  into  his  journal  and  go 
to  posterity  as  one  of  his  own  lucubrations,  but  that 
Esmond  did  not  care  to  have  a  lady's  name  whom  he  loved, 

25  sent  forth  to  the  world  in  a  light  so  unfavourable.  Beatrix 
pished  and  psha'd  over  the  paper ;  Colonel  Esmond  watch- 
ing with  no  little  interest  her  countenance  as  she  read 
it. 

"How  stupid  your  friend  Mr.  Steele  becomes!"  cries  Miss 

30  Beatrix.  "  Ei)som  and  Tunbridge  !  AVill  he  never  have  done 
with  Epsom  and  Tunbridge,  and  with  beaux  at  church,  and 
Jocastas  and  Lindamiras?  Why  does  he  not  call  women 
Xelly  and  Betty, °  as  their  godfathers  and  godmothers  did 
for  them  in  their  baptism?" 

35  "Beatrix,  Ik^atrix!"  says  her  mother,  "speak  gravely  of 
grave  things." 

"Mamma  thinks  the  Church  Catechism  came  from  Heaven, 
I  believe,"  says  iJeatrix,  with  a  laugh,  "and  was  brought 
down  by  a  bialiop  from  a  mountain.     Oh,  how  I  used  to  break 


HENRY    ESMOND  373 

my   heart   over   it !      Besides,  I  had  a   Popish   godmother, 
mamma;    why  did  you  give  me  one?" 

''I  gave  you  the  Queen's  name,"  says  her  mother,  blushing. 

"And  a  very  pretty  name  it  is,"  said  somebody  else. 

Beatrix  went  on  reading  —  ''Spell  my  name  with  ay —  5 
why,  you  wretch,"  says  she,  turning  round  to  Colonel  Iilsmond, 
"you  have  been  telling  my  story  to  Mr.  Steele  —  or  stop  — 
you  have  written  the  paper  yourself  to  turn  me  into  ridicule. 
For  shame,  sir!" 

Poor  Mr.  Esmond  felt  rather  frightened,  and  told  a  truth,  10 
which   was   nevertheless   an   entire   falsehood.     "Upon   my 
honour,"  says  he,  "I  have  not  even  read  the  Spectator  of  this 
morning."     Nor  had  he,  for  that  was  not  the  Spectator,  but 
a  sham  newspaper  put  in  its  place. 

She  went  on  reading:  her  face  rather  flushed  as  she  read.  15 
"No,"  she  says,  "I  think  you  couldn't  have  written  it.  I 
think  it  must  have  been  Mr.  Steele  when  he  was  drunk  —  and 
afraid  of  his  horrid  vulgar  wife.  Whenever  I  see  an  enormous 
compliment  to  a  woman,  and  some  outrageous  panegyrick 
about  female  ^drtue,  I  always  feel  sure  that  the  Captain  and  20 
his  better  half  have  fallen  out  over  night,  and  that  he  has 
been  brought  home  tipsy,  or  has  been  found  out  in " 

"Beatrix!"  cries  the  Lady  Castlewood. 

"Well,  mamma!  Do  not  cry  out  before  you  are  hurt.  I 
am  not  going  to  say  anything  wrong.  I  won't  give  3'ou  inore  25 
annoyance  than  you  can  help,  you  pretty  kind  mamma.  l"es, 
and  your  httle  trix  is  a  naughty  httie  Trix,  and  she  leaves 
undone  those  things  which  she  ought  to  have  done,  and  does 
those  things  which  she  ought  not  to  have  done,  and  there's  — 
well,  now  —  I  won't  go  on.  Yes,  I  will,  unless  you  kiss  me."  30 
And  with  this  the  young  lady  lays  aside  her  paper,  and  runs 
up  to  her  mother  and  performs  a  variety  of  embraces  with 
her  ladyship,  saying  as  plain  as  eyes  could  speak  to  Mr. 
Esmond,  —  "There,  sir:  would  not  you  hke  to  play  the  very 
same  pleasant  game?"  35 

"Indeed,  madam,  I  would,"  says  he. 

"Would  what?"  asked  Miss  Beatrix. 

"  What  you  meant  when  you  looked  at  me  in  that  provoking 
way,"  answers  Esmond. 


374  HENRY   ESMOND 

"What  a  confessor  !"  cries  Beatrix,  with  a  laugh. 
"  What  is  it  Henry  would  like,  my  dear  ?  "  asks  her  mother, 
the  kind  soul,  who  was  always  thinking  what  we  would  like, 
and  how  she  could  please  us. 
5      The  girl  runs  up  to  her  —  "Oh,  you  silly  kind  mamma," 
she  says,  kissing  her  again,  "that's  what  Harry  would  like;" 
and   she  broke    out  into  a  great  joyful  laugh:    and    Lady 
Castlewood  blushed  as  bashful  as  a  maid  of  sixteen. 
"Look  at  her,  Harry,"  whispers  Beatrix,  running  up,  and 

10  speaking  in  her  sweet  low  tones.     "  Doesn't  the  blush  become 

her?     Isn't  she  pretty?     She  looks  younger  than  I  am,  and 

I  am  sure  she  is  a  hundred  million  thousand  times  better." 

Esmond's  kind  mistress  left  the  room,  carrying  her  blushes 

away  with  her. 

15  "If  we  girls  at  Court  could  grow  such  roses  as  that,"  con- 
tinues Beatrix,  with  her  laugh,  "what  wouldn't  we  do  to 
preserve  'em  !  We'd  clip  their  stalks  and  put  'em  in  salt  and 
water.  But  those  flowers  don't  bloom  at  Hampton  Court 
and  Windsor,  Henry."     She  paused  for  a  minute,  and  the 

20  smile  fading  away  from  her  April  face,  gave  place  to  a  men- 
acing shower  of  tears  :  "  Oh,  how  good  she  is,  Harry,"  Beatrix 
went  on  to  say.  "Oh,  what  a  saint  she  is!  Her  goodness 
frightens  me.  I'm  not  fit  to  live  with  her.  I  should  be 
better,  I  think,  if  she  were  not  so  perfect.     She  has  had  a 

25  great  sorrow  in  her  life,  and  a  great  secret ;   and  repented  of 
it.     It  could  not  have  been  my  father's  death.     She  talks 
freely  about  that ;  nor  could  she  have  loved  him  very  much  — 
though  who  knows  what  we  wome»  do  love,  and  wh}^?" 
"What,  and  why,  indeed,"  says  Mr.  Esmond. 

33  "No  one  knows,"  Beatrix  went  on,  without  noticing  this 
interruption  except  by  a  look,  "  what  my  mother's  hfe  is.  She 
hath  been  at  early  prayer  this  morning:  she  passes  hours  in 
her  closet ;  if  you  were  to  follow  her  thither,  you  would  find 
her  at  prayers  now.     She  tends  the  poor  of  the  place  —  the 

35  horrid,  dirty  poor.  She  sits  through  the  curate's  sermons, 
—  oh,  those  dreary  sermons !  And  you  see,  on  a  beau  dire° ; 
but  good  as  they  are,  people  like  her  are  not  fit  to  commune 
with  us  of  the  world.  There  is  always,  as  it  were,  a  third 
person  present,  even  when  I  and  my  mother  are  alone.     She 


HENRY   ESMOlsD  375 

can't  be  frank  with  me  quite ;  who  is  always  thinking  of  the 
next  world,  and  of  her  guardian  angel,  perhaps  that's  in  com- 
pany. Oh,  Harry,  I'm  jealous  of  that  guardian  angel !"  here 
broke  out  Mistress  Beatrix.  ''It's  horrid,  I  know;  but  my 
mother's  Ufe  is  all  for  Heaven,  and  mine  —  all  for  earth.  5 
We  can  never  be  friends  quite ;  and  then,  she  cares  more  for 
Frank's  little  finger  than  she  does  for  me,  —  I  know  she  does : 
and  she  loves  you,  sir,  a  great  deal  too  much ;  and  I  hate  you 
for  it.  I  would  have  had  her  all  to  myself ;  but  she  wouldn't. 
In  my  childhood,  it  was  my  father  she  loved  —  (oh,  how  10 
could  she?  I  remember  him  kind  and  handsome,  but  so 
stupid,  and  not  being  able  to  speak  after  drinking  v/ine)o 
And,  then,  it  was  Frank;  and  now,  it  is  Heaven  and  the 
clergyman.  How'  I  w^ould  have  loved  her !  From  a  child 
I  used  to  be  in  a  rage  that  she  loved  anybody  but  me ;  but  1 5 
she  loved  you  all  better  — all,  I  know  she  did.  And  now,  she 
talks  of  the  blessed  consolation  of  religion.  Dear  soul !  she 
thinks  she  is  happier  for  beheving,  as  she  must,  that  we  are 
all  of  us  wicked  and  miserable  sinners;  and  this  world  is 
only  a  -pied  a  tcrre°  for  the  good,  where  they  stay  for  a  night,  20 
as  we  do,  coming  from  Walcote,  at  that  great,  dreary,  un- 
comfortable Hounslow  Inn.  in  those  horrid  beds.  Oh,  do 
you  remember  those  horrid  beds  ?  —  and  the  chariot  comes 
and  fetches  them  to  HeaA^en  the  next  morning." 

"Hush,  Beatrix,"  says  Mr.  Esmond.  25 

''Hush,  indeed.  You  are  a  hypocrite,  too,  Henry,  with 
your  grave  airs  and  your  glum  face.  We  are  all  hypocrites. 
O  dear  me!  We  are  all  alone,  alone,  alone,"  says  poor 
Beatrix,  her  fair  breast  heaving  with  a  sigh. 

"It  was  I  that  writ  every  line  of  that  paper,  my  dear,  '  3° 
says  Mr.  Esmond.  "You  are  not  so  worldly  as  you  think 
yourself,  Beatrix,  and  better  than  we  beheve  you.  The 
good  we  have  in  us  we  doubt  of ;  and  the  happiness  that's  to 
our  hand  we  throw  away.  You  bend  your  ambition  on  a 
great  marriage  and  estabhshment  —  and  why?  You'll  tire  35 
of  them  when  you  win  them :  and  be  no  happier  with  a 
coronet  on  your  coach " 

"Than  riding  pillion  with  Lubin  to  market,"  says  Beatrix. 
*' Thank  vou,  Lubin!" 


376  HENRY   ESMOND 

''I'm  a  dismal  shepherd,  to  be  sure,"  answers  Esmond,  with 
a  blush ;  "  and  require  a  nymph  that  can  tuck  my  bed-clothea 
up,  and  make  me  water-gruel.  Well,  Tom  Lockwood  can 
do  that.  He  took  me  out  of  the  fire  upon  his  shoulders,  and 
5  nursed  me  through  my  illness  as  love  will  scarce  ever  do. 
Only  good  wages,  and  a  hope  of  my  clothes,  and  the  contents 
of  my  portmanteau.  How  long  was  it  that  Jacob  served  an 
apprenticeship  for  Rachel?" 

''For  mamma°?"  says  Beatrix.  "Is  it  mamma  your 
10  honour  wants,  and  that  I  should  have  the  happiness  of  calling 
you  papa?" 

Esmond   blushed   again.     "I   spoke   of  a   Rachel   that  a 

shepherd  courted  five  thousand  years  ago ;  when  shepherds  were 

longer  lived  than  now.     And  my  meaningVas,  that  since  I 

15  saw  you  first  after  our  separation  —  a  child  3^ou  were  then  ..." 

"And  I  put  on  my  best  stockings,  to  captivate  you,  I 
remember,  sir  ..." 

"You  have  had  my  heart  ever  since  then,  such  as  it  was; 
and,  such  as  you  were,  I  cared  for  no  other  woman.  What 
20  little  reputation  I  have  won,  it  was  that  j^ou  might  be  pleased 
with  it :  and,  indeed,  it  is  not  much ;  and  I  think  a  hundred 
fools  in  the  army  have  got  and  deserved  quite  as  much. 
Was  there  something  in  the  air  of  that  dismal  old  Castlewood 
that  made  us  all  gloomy,  and  dissatisfied,  and  lonely  under 
25  its  ruined  old  roof?  We  were  all  so,  even  when  together  and 
united,  as  it  seemed,  following  our  separate  schemes,  each  as 
we  sate  round  the  table." 

"  Dear,  dreary  old  place  !  "  cries  Beatrix.     "  Mamma  hath 

never  had  the  heart  to  go  back  thither  since  we  left  it,  when 

30  —  never  mind  how  many  years  ago,"  and  she  flung  back  her 

curls,  and  looked  over  her  fair  shoulder  at  the  mirror  superbly, 

as  if  she  said,  "Time,  I  defy  you." 

""ics,"  says  Esmond,  who  had  the  art,  as  she  owned,  of 
divining  many  of  her  thoughts.  "You  can  afford  to  look 
;^5  in  the  glass  still ;  and  only  be  pleased  by  the  truth  it  tells  you. 
As  for  me,  do  you  know  what  my  scheme  is?  I  think  of 
asking  Frank  to  give  me  the  Virginia  estate  King  Charles 
gave  our  grandfather.  (She  gave  a  superb  curtsey,  as  much 
as   to   say,    "Our   grandfatlier,    indeed!     Thank   you,    Mr 


HENRY  ESMOND  377 

Bastard.")  Yes,  I  know  you  are  thinking  of  my  bar-sinister, 
and  so  am  I.  A  man  cannot  get  over  it  in  this  country; 
unless,  indeed,  he  wears  it  across  a  king's  arms,  when  'tis  a 
highly  honourable  coat;  and  I  am  thinking  of  retiring  into 
the  plantations,  and  building  myself  a  wigwam  in  the  woods,  5 
and  perhaps,  if  I  want  company,  suiting  myself  with  a  squaw. 
We  will  send  your  ladyship  furs  over  for  the  winter;  and 
when  you  are  old,  we'll  provide  you  with  tobacco.  I  am  not 
quite  clever  enough,  or  not  rogue  enough  —  I  know  not  which 
—  for  the  old  world.  I  may  make  a  place  for  myself  in  the  la 
new,  which  is  not  so  full ;  and  found  a  family  there.  When 
you  are  a  mother  yourself,  and  a  great  lady,  perhaps  I  shall 
send  you  over  from  the  plantation  some  day  a  little  bar- 
barian that  is  half  Esmond  half  Mohock,  °  and  you  will  be 
kind  to  him  for  his  father's  sake,  who  was,  after  all,  your  15 
kinsman;    and  whom  you  loved  a  little." 

"What  folly  you  are  talking,  Harry,"  says  Miss  Beatrix, 
looking  with  her  great  eyes. 

"'Tis  sober  earnest,"  says  Esmond.  And,  indeed,  the 
scheme  had  been  dwelling  a  good  deal  in  his  mind  for  some  20 
time  past,  and  especially  since  his  return  home,  when  he 
found  how  hopeless,  and  even  degrading  to  himself,  his 
passion  was.  ''Xo,"  says  he,  then,  "I  have  tried  half  a 
dozen  times  now.  I  can  bear  being  away  from  you  well 
enough;  but  being  with  you  is  intolerable"  (another  lovf  25 
curtsey  on  Mistress  Beatrix's  part),  "and  I  will  go.  I  have 
enough  to  buy  axes  and  guns  for  my  men,  and  beads  and 
blankets  for  the  savages ;  and  I'll  go  and  live  amongst  them." 

"Mon  ami,°"  she  says,  quite  kindly,  and  taking  Esmond's 
hand,  with  an  air  of  great  compassion.  "You  can't  think  30 
that  in  our  position  anything  more  than  our  present  friend- 
ship is  possible.  You  are  our  elder  brother  —  as  such  we 
view  you,  pitying  your  misfortune,  not  rebuking  you  with  it. 
Why,  you  are  old  enough  and  grave  enough  to  be  our  father. 
I  alwaj^s  thought  you  a  hundred  years  old,  Harry,  with  your  35 
solemn  face  and  grave  air.  I  feel  as  a  sister  to  you,  and  can 
no  more.  Isn't  that  enough,  sir?"  And  she  put  her  face 
quite  close  to  his  —  who  knows  with  what  intention  ? 

"It's  too  much,"  says  Esmond,  turning  away.     "I  can't 


378  HENRY   ESMOND 

bear  this  life,  and  shall  leave  it.  I  shall  stay,  I  think,  to  see 
you  married,  and  then  freight  a  ship,  and  call  it  the  Beatrix^ 
and  bid  you  all  ..." 

Here  the  servant,  flinging  the  door  open,  announced  his 
5  Grace  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  and  Esmond  started  back 
with  something  like  an  imprecation  on  his  hps,  as  the  noble- 
man entered,  looking  splendid  in  his  star  and  green  ribbon. 
He  gave  Mr.  Esmond  just  that  gracious  bow  which  he  would 
have  given  to  a  lac(|uey  who  fetched  him  a  chair  or  took  his 
10  hat,  and  seated  himself  by  Miss  Beatrix,  as  the  poor  Colonel 
went  out  of  the  room  with  a  hangdog  look. 

Esmond's  mistress  was  in  the  lower  room  as  he  passed 
down  stairs.  She  often  met  him  as  he  was  coming  away 
from  Beatrix;  and  she  beckoned  him  into  the  apartment. 
15       "Has  she  told  you,  Harry?"  Lady  Castlewood  said. 

"She  has  been  very  frank  —  ver}^,"  says  Esmond. 

"But  —  but  about  what  is  going  to  happen?" 

"What  is  going  to  happen?"  says  he,  his  heart  beating. 

"His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  has  proposed  to  her," 
20  says  my  lady.  "He  made  his  offer  yesterday.  They  will 
marry  as  soon  as  his  mourning  is  over ;  and  you  have  heard 
his  Grace  is  appointed  Ambassador  to  Paris;  and  the  Am- 
bassadress goes  with  him." 

CHAPTER  IV 

Beatrix's  new  suitor 

The  gentleman  whom  Beatrix  had  selected  was,  to  be  sure, 
25  twenty  years  older  than  the  Colonel,  with  whom  she  quar- 
relled for  being  too  old ;  but  this  one  was  but  a  nameless 
adventurer,  and  the  other,  the  greatest  duke  in  Scotland, 
with  pretensions  even  to  a  still  higher  title.  My  Lord  Duke 
of  Hamilton  had,  indeed,  every  merit  belonging  to  a  gentle- 
30  man,  and  he  had  had  the  time  to  mature  his  accomplish- 
ments fully,  being  upwards  of  fifty  years  old  when  Madam 
J^eatrix  selected  him  for  a  bridegroom.  Duke  Hamilton, 
then  Earl  of  Arran,°  had  been  educated  at  the  famous  Scottish 
university  of  (Jlasgow,  and,  coming  to  London,  became  a 


HENRY   ESMOND  379 

great  favourite  of  Charles  the  Second,  who  made  him  a  lord 
of  his  bedchamber,  and  afterwards  appointed  him  ambas- 
sador to  the  French  king,  under  whom  the  earl  served  two 
campaigns  as  his  Majesty's  aide-de-camp;  and  he  was  absent 
on  this  service  when  King  Charles  died.  5 

King  James  continued  ni}^  lord's  promotion  —  made  him 
Master  of  the  Wardrobe,  and  Colonel  of  the  Royal  Regiment 
of  Horse;  and  his  lordship  adhered  firmly  to  King  James, 
being  of  the  small  company  that  never  quitted  that  unfortu- 
nate monarch  till  his  departure  out  of  England ;  and  then  ro 
it  wa^,  in  1688,  namely,  that  he  made  the  friendship  with 
Colonel  Francis  Esmond,  that  had  always  been,  more  or 
less,  maintained  in  the  two  families. 

The  earl  professed  a  great  admiration  for  King  WilHam 
always,  but  never  could  give  him  his  allegiance ;  and  was  15 
engaged  in* more  than  one  of  the  plots  in  the  late  great  King's 
reign,  wliich  always  ended  in  the  plotters'  discomfiture, 
and  generally  in  their  pardon,  by  the  magnanimity  of  the 
King.  Lord  Arran  was  twice  prisoner  in  the  Tower  during 
this  reign,  undauntedly  saying,  when  offered  his  release,  20 
upon  parole  not  to  engage  against  King  William,  that  he 
would  not  give  his  word,  because  "he  was  sure  he  could  not 
keep  it";  but,  nevertheless,  he  was  both  times  discharged 
without  any  trial ;  and  the  King  bore  this  noble  enemy  so  little 
malice,  that  when  his  mother,  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton,  of  25 
her  own  right,  resigned  her  claim  on  her  husband's  death, 
the  Earl  was,  by  patent  signed  at  Loo,°  1690,  created  Duke 
of  Hamilton,  Marquis  of  Clydesdale,  and  Earl  of  Arran, 
with  precedency  from  the  original  creation.  His  Grace 
took  the  oaths  and  his  seat  in'  the  Scottish  parhament  in  30 
1700:  was  famous  there  for  his  patriotism  and  eloquence, 
especially  in  the  debates  about  the  Union  Bill,  which  Duke 
Hamilton  opposed  with  all  his  strength,  though  he  would 
not  go  the  length  of  the  Scottish  gentry,  w^ho  were  for  resist- 
ing it  by  force  of  arms.  'Twas  said  he  withdrew  his  opposi-  35 
tion  all  of  a  sudden,  and  in  consequence  of  letters  from  the 
King  at  St.  Germains,  who  entreated  him  on  his  allegiance 
not  to  thwart  the  Queen,  his  sister,  in  this  measure;  and 
the    Duke,    being   always   bent    upon    effecting   the    King's 


380  HENRY   ESMOND 

return  to  his  kingdom  through  a  reconciUation  between 
his  Majesty  and  Queen  Anne,  and  quite  averse  to  his  landing 
with  arms  and  French  troops,  held  aloof,  and  kept  out  of 
Scotland  during  the  time  when  the  Chevalier  de  St.  George's 
5  descent  from  Dunkirk  was  projected,  passing  his  time  in 
England  in  his  great  estate  in  Staffordshire. ° 

When  the  Whigs  went  out  of  office  in  1710,°  the  Queen 
began  to  show  his  Grace  the  ver}^  greatest  marks  of  her 
favour.     He  was  created  Duke  of  Brandon  and  Baron  of 

10  Dutton  in  England;  having  the  Thistle°  already  originally 
bestowed  on  him  by  King  James  the  Second,  his  Grace  was 
now  promoted  to  the  honour  of  the  Garter  —  a  distinction 
so  great  and  illustrious,  that  no  subject  hath  ever  borne 
them   hitherto   together.      When   this  objection  was   made 

15  to  her  Majest}^,  she  was  pleased  to  say,  "Such  a  subject  as 
the  Duke  of  Hamilton  has  a  pre-eminent  claim  to  every 
mark  of  distinction  w^hich  a  crowned  head  can  confer.  1 
will  henceforth  wear  both  orders  myself. '' 

At   the  Chapter°   held  at  Windsor  in  October,    1712,  the 

20  Duke  and  other  knights,  including  Lord  Treasurer,  the 
new-created  Earl  of  Oxford  and  Mortimer, °  were  installed; 
and  a  few  days  afterwards  his  Grace  was  appointed  Ambas- 
sador-Extraordinary to  France,  and  his  equipages,  plate,  and 
liveries  commanded,  of  the  most  sumptuous  kind,  not  only 

25  for  his  Excellency  the  Ambassador,  but  for  her  Excellency 

the  Ambassadress,  who  was  to  accompany  him.     Her  arms 

were  already  cfuartered  on  the  coach  panels,  and  her  brother 

was  to  hasten  over  on  the  appointed  day  to  give  her  away. 

His  lordship   was  a  widower,   having  married,   in   1698, 

3°  Elizabeth  daughter  of  Digby,  Lord  Gerard, °  by  which 
marriage  great  estates  came  into  the  Hamilton  family; 
and  out  of  these  estates  came,  in  part,  that  tragick  quarrel 
which  ended  the  Duke's  career. 

From  the  loss  of  a  tooth  to  that  of  a  mistress  there's  no 

35  i)aiig  that  is  not  bearable.     The  apprehension  is  much  more 

cruel  than  the  certainty;   and  we  make  up  our  mind  to  the 

misfortune  when  'tis  irremediable,  jmrt  with  the  tormentor, 

and  mumble  our  crust  on  t'other  side  of  the  jaws.     I  think 


HENRY   ESMOND  381 

Colonel  Esmond  was  relieved  when  a  ducal  coach-and-six 
came  and  whisked  his  charmer  away  out  of  his  reach,  and 
placed  her  in  a  higher  sphere.  As  you  have  seen  the  nymph 
in  the  opera-machine°  go  up  to  the  clouds  at  the  end  of 
the  piece  where  Mars,  Bacchus,  Apollo,  and  all  the  divine  5 
company  of  Olympians  are  seated,  and  quaver  out  her 
last  song  as  a  goddess :  so  when  this  portentous  elevation 
was  accomplished  in  the  Esmond  family,  I  am  not  sure 
that  every  one  of  us  did  not  treat  the  divine  Beatrix  with 
special  honours;  at  least,  the  saucy  Httle  beauty  carried  10 
her  head  with  a  toss  of  supreme  authority,  and  assumed  a 
touch-me-not  air,  which  all  her  friends- very  good-humouredly 
bowed  to. 

An  old  army  acquaintance  of  Colonel  Esmond's,  honest 
Tom  Trett,  who  had  sold  his  company,  married  a  wife,  and  15 
turned  merchant  in  the  city,  was  dreadfully  gloomy  for  a 
long  time,  though  hving  in  a  fine  house  on  the  river,  and 
carrying  on  a  great  trade  to  all  appearance.  At  length 
Esmoncl  saw  his  friend's  name  in  the  Gazette  as  a  bank- 
rupt; and  a  week  after  this  circumstance  my  bankrupt  20 
walks  into  Mr.  Esmond's  lodging  with  a  face  perfectly 
radiant  with  good  humour,  and  as  jolly  and  careless  as  when 
they  had  sailed  from  Southampton  ten  j'ears  before  for 
Vigo.  "This  bankruptcy,"  says  Tom,  "has  been  hanging 
over  my  head  these  three  years ;  the  thought  hath  prevented  25 
my  sleeping,  and  I  have  looked  at  poor  Polly's  head  on 
t'other  pillow,  and  then  towards  my  razor  on  the  table, 
and  thought  to  put  an  end  to  myself,  and  so  give  my  woes 
the  slip.  But  now  we  are  bankrupts :  Tom  Trett  pays  as 
many  shillings  in  the  pound  as  he  can ;  his  wife  has  a  little  30 
cottage  at  Fulham,°  and  her  fortune  secured  to  herself.  I 
am  afraid  neither  of  bailiff  nor  of  creditor;  and  for  the  last 
six  nights  have  slept  easy."  So  it  was  that  when  Fortune 
shook  her  wings  and  left  him,  honest  Tom  cuddled  him.self 
up  in  his  ragged  virtue,  and  fell  asleep.  3j 

Esmond  did  not  tell  his  friend  how  much  his  story  applied 
to  Esmond  too  :  but  he  laughed  at  it,  and  used  it ;  and  having 
fairly  struck  his  docket  in  this  love  transaction,  determined 
to  put  a  cheerful  face  on  his  bankruptcy.     Perhaps  Beatrix 


382  HENRY  ESMOND 

was  a  little  offended  at  his  gaiety.  "Is  this  the  way,  sir, 
that  you  receive  the  announcement  of  your  misfortune," 
says  she,  "and  do  you  come  smiUng  before  me  as  if  you  were 
glad  to  be  rid  of  me  ?  " 

5  Esmond  would  not  be  put  off  from  his  good  humour,  but 
told  her  the  story  of  Tom  Trett  and  his  bankruptcy.  "I 
have  been  hankering  after  the  grapes  on  the  wall,"  says  he, 
"and  lost  my  temper  because  they  were  beyond  my  reach; 
was  there   any  wonder?     They're   gone   now  and   another 

ro  has  them  —  a  taller  man  than  your  humble  servant  has 

won  them."     And  the  Colonel  made  his  cousin  a  low  bow. 

"A  taller  man.  Cousin  Esmond!"  says  she.     "A  man  of 

spirit  would  have  scaled  the  wall,  sir,  and  seized  them !     A 

man  of  courage  would  have  fought  for  'em,  not  gaped  for  'em." 

15  "A  Duke  has  but  to  gape  and  they  drop  into  his  mouth," 
says  Esmond,  with  another  low  bow. 

"Yes,  sir,"  says  she,  "a  Duke  is  a  taller  man  than  you. 
And  why  should  I  not  be  grateful  to  one  such  as  his  Grace, 
who  gives  me  his  heart  and  his  great  name?     It  is  a  great 

20  gift  he  honours  me  with ;  I  know  'tis  a  bargain  between 
us;  and  I  accept  it,  and  will  do  my  utmost  to  perform  my 
part  of  it.  'Tis  no  question  of  sighing  and  philandering 
between  a  nobleman  of  his  Grace's  age  and  a  girl  who  hath 
little  of  that  softness  in  her   nature.     Why  should   I   not 

25  own  that  I  am  ambitious,  Harry  Esmond ;  and  if  it  be  no 
sin  in  a  man  to  covet  honour,  why  should  a  woman  too  not 
desire  it?  Shall  I  be  frank  with  you,  Harry,  and  say  that  if 
you  had  not  been  down  on  your  knees,  and  so  humble,  you 
might  have  fared  better  with  me?     A  woman  of  my  spirit, 

30  cousin,  is  to  be  won  by  gallantry,  and  not  by  sighs  and  rueful 
faces.  All  the  time  you  are  worshipping  and  singing  hymns 
to  me,  I  know  very  well  I  am  no  goddess,  and  grow  weary 
of  the  incense.  80  would  you  have  been  weary  of  the 
goddess  too  — •  when  she  was  called  Mrs.  P]smond,  and  got 

35  out  of  humour  because  she  had  not  pin-money  enough,  and 
was  forced  to  go  about  in  an  old  gown.  Eh  !  cousin,  a  god- 
dess in  a  mo})-cap,  that  has  to  make  her  husband's  gruel, 
ceases  to  Ik;  divine,  —  I  am  sure  of  it.  I  should  have  been 
sulky  and  scolded ;    and  of  all  the  proud  wretches  in  the 


HENRY    ESMOND  383 

world  Mr.  Esmond  is  the  proudest,  let  me  tell  him  that, 
"/ou  never  fall  into  a  passion :  but  you  never  forgive,"  I 
think.  Had  you  been  a  great  man,  you  might  have  been 
good  humoured ;  but  being  nobody,  sir,  you  are  too  great  a 
man  for  me;  and  I'm  afraid  of  you,  cousin  —  there;  and  I  5 
won't  worship  you,  and  you'll  never  be  happy  except  with 
a  woman  who  will.  Why,  after  I  belonged  to  you,  and  after 
one  of  my  tantrums,  you  would  have  put  the  pillow  over  my 
head  some  night,  and  smothered  me,  as  the  black  man  does 
the  woman  in  the  play°  that  you're  so  fond  of.  What's  10 
the  creature's  name?  —  Desdemona.  You  would,  you  little 
black-eyed  Othello ! " 

"I  think  I  should,  Beatrix,"  says  the  Colonel. 

"And  I  w^ant  no  such  ending.  I  intend  to  live  to  be  a 
hundred,  and  to  go  to  ten  thousand  routs°  and  balls,  and  to  15 
play  cards  every  night  of  my  life  till  the  year  eight  een-hundred. 
And  I  hke  to  be  the  first  of  my  company,  sir;  and  I  like 
flattery  and  compliments,  and  you  give  me  none;  and  I 
like  to  be  made  to  laugh,  sir,  and  who's  to  laugh  at  your 
dismal  face,  I  should  hke  to  know  ?  and  I  like  a  coach-and-  20 
six  or  a  coach-and-eight ;  and  I  like  diamonds,  and  a  new 
gown  every  week;  and  people  to  say  —  'That's  the  Duchess 

—  How  well  her  Grace    looks  !  —  INIake   way   for    IMadame 
I'Ambassadrice  d'Angleterre°  —  Call  her  Excellency's  people' 

—  that's  what  I  like.     And  as  for  you,  you  want  a  woman  to  25 
bring  your  slippers  and  cap,  and  to  sit  at  your  feet,  and  cry 

'  O  caro !  O  bravo°  ! '  whilst  you  read  your  Shakspeares,  and 
Miltons,  and  stuff. °  Mamma  would  have  been  the  wife 
for  you,  had  you  been  a  little  older,  though  you  look  ten 
years  older  than  she  does  —  3^ou  do,  you  glum-faced,  blue-  3« 
bearded,  little  old  man !  You  might  have  sat,  like  Darby 
and  Joan,  and  flattered  each  other;  and  billed  and  cooed 
like  a  pair  of  old  pigeons  on  a  perch.  I  want  my  wings 
and  to  use  them,  sir."  And  she  spread  out  her  beautiful 
arms,  as  if  indeed  she  could  fly  off  like  the  pretty  "Gawrie,°  "  35 
w^hom  the  man  in  the  story  was  enamoured  of. 

"And  what  will  your  Peter  Wilkins  saj^  to  your  flight?" 
says  Esmond,  who  never  admired  this  fair  creature  more 
than  when  she  rebelled  and  laughed  at  him. 


384  HENRY   ESMOND 

"A  Duchess  knows  her  place,"  says  she,  with  a  laugh. 
"Why,  I  have  a  son  already  made  for  me,  and  thirty  years 
old  (my  Lord  Arran),  and  four  daughters.  How  they  will 
scold,  and  what  a  rage  they  will  be  in,  when  I  come  to  take 
5  the  head  of  the  table !  But  I  give  them  only  a  month  to 
be  angry;  at  the  end  of  that  time  they  shall  love  me  every 
one,  and  so  shall  Lord  AiTan,  and  so  shall  all  his  Grace's 
Scots  vassals  and  followers  in  the  Highlands.  I'm  bent  on 
it;    and  when  I  take  a  thing  in  my  head,   'tis  done.     His 

10  Grace  is  the  greatest  gentleman  in  Europe,  and  I'll  try  and 
make  him  hapjDy;  and  when  the  King  comes  back,  you 
may  count  on  my  protection,  cousin  Esmond  —  for  come 
back  the  King  will  and  shall:  and  I'll  bring  him  back  from 
Versailles,  if  he  comes  under  my  hoop." 

15  "I  hope  the  world  will  make  you  happy,  Beatrix"  says 
Esmond,  with  a  sigh.  "You'll  be  Beatrix  till  you  are  my 
Lady  Duchess  —  will  you  not  ?  I  shall  then  make  your 
Grace  my  very  lowest  bow." 

"None  of  these  sighs  and  this  satire,  cousin."  she  says. 

20  "I  take  his  Grace's  great  bounty  thankfull}^ — yes,  thank- 
fully; and  will  wear  his  honours  becomingly.  I  do  not  say 
he  hath  touched  my  heart ;  but  he  has  my  gratitude,  obedi- 
ence, admiration  —  I  have  told  him  that,  and  no  more ;  and 
with  that  his  noble  heart  is  content.    I   have  told  him  all 

25  —  even  the  story  of  that  poor  creature  that  I  was  engaged 
to  —  and  that  I  could  not  love ;  and  I  gladly  gave  his  word 
back  to  him,  and  jumped  for  joy  to  get  back  my  own.  I  am 
twenty-five  years  old." 

"Twenty-six,  my  dear,"  says  Esmond. 

30  "Twenty-five,  sir  —  I  choose  to  be  twenty-five;  and  in 
eight  years,  no  man  hath  ever  touched  my  heart.  Yes  — 
you  did  once,  for  a  little,  Harry,  when  3^ou  came  back,  after 
Lille,  and  engaging  with  that  murderer,  JMohun,  and  saving 
Frank's   life.     I   thought   I    could   like   you;    and   mamma 

35  begged  me  hard,  on  her  knees,  and  I  did,  —  for  a  day. 
But  the  old  chill  came  over  me,  Henry,  and  the  old  fear  of 
you  and  your  melancholy;  and  I  was  glad  when  you  went 
away,  and  engaged  with°  my  Lord  Ashburnham  that  I 
might  hear  no  more  of  you,  Uiat's  the  truth.     You  are  too 


HENRY   ESMOND  385 

good  for  me  somehow.  I  could  not  make  you  happy,  and 
should  break  my  heart  in  trying,  and  not  being  able  to  love 
you.  But  if  you  had  asked  me  when  we  gave  you  the  sword, 
you  might  have  had  me,  sir,  and  we  both  should  ha\-e  been 
miserable  by  this  time.  I  talked  with  that  silly  lord  all  5 
night  just  to  vex  you  and  mamma,  and  I  succeeded,  didn't 
I  ?  How  frankly  we  can  talk  of  these  things !  It  seems 
a  thousand  years  ago :  and  though  we  are  here  sitting  in 
the  same  room,  there's  a  great  wall  between  us.  My  dear, 
kind,  faithful,  gloomy  old  cousin !  I  can  like  you  now,  and  10 
admire  you  too,  sir,  and  say  that  you  are  brave  and  very 
kind,  and  very  true,  and  a  fine  gentleman  for  all  —  for  all 
your  Uttle  mishap  at  your  birth, '^  says  she,  wagging  her 
arch  head. 

"And  now,  sir,"  says  she,  with  a  curtsey,  "we  must  have  15 
no  more  talk  except  when  mamma  is  by,  as  his  Grace  is  with 
us;   for  he  does  not  half  hke  you,  cousin,  and  is  as  jealous 
as  the  black  man°  in  your  favourite  play." 

Though  the  very  kindness  of  the  words  stabbed  ]\Ir.  Esmond 
with  the  keenest  pang,  he  did  not  show  his  sense  of  the  20 
wound  by  any  look  of  his  (as  Beatrix,  indeed,  afterwards 
owned  to  him),  but  said,  wnth  a  perfect  command  of  himself 
and  an  easy  smile,  "The  interview  must  not  end  yet,  my 
dear,   until  I  have  had  my  last  word.     Stay,  here  comes 
your  mother"    (indeed   she   came   in  here   with  her   sweet  25 
anxious  face,  and  Esmond,  going  up,  kissed  her  hand  respect- 
fully).    "My  dear  lady  may  hear,  too,  the  last  words,  which 
are  no  secrets,  and  are  only  a  parting  benediction  accom- 
panying a  present  for  your  marriage  from  an  old  gentleman 
your  guardian ;   for  I  feel  as  if  I  was  the  guardian  of  all  the  30 
family,  and  an  old  old  fellow^  that  is  fit  to  be  the  grandfather 
of  you  all;    and  in  this  character  let  me  make  my  Lady 
Duchess    her    wedding    present.     They    are    the    diamonds 
my  father's  widow  left  me.     I  had  thought  Beatrix  might 
have  had  them  a  year  ago ;   but  they  are  good  enough  for  a  35 
duchess,  though  not  bright  enough  for  the  handsomest  woman 
in  the  world."     x\nd  he  took  the  case  out  of  his  pocket  in 
which  the  jewels  were,  and  presented  them  to  his  cousin. 

She  gave  a  cry  of  delight,  for  the  stones  were  indeed  very 


386  HENRY   ESMOND 

handsome,  and  of  great  value;  and  the  next  minute  the 
necklace  was  where  Behnda's  cross  is  in  Mr.  Pope's  admirable 
poem,°  and  glittering  on  the  whitest  and  most  perfectly- 
shaped  neck  in  all  England, 
t.  The  girl's  delight  at  receiving  these  trinkets  was  so  great 
that  after  rushing  to  the  looking-glass  and  examining  the  ef- 
fect they  produced  upon  that  fair  neck  which  they  surrounded, 
Beatrix  was  running  back  with  her  arms  extended,  and 
was  perhaps  for  paying  her  cousin  with  a  price,  that  he  would 
10  have  hked  no  doubt  to  receive  from  those  beautiful  rosy 
Ups  of  hers,  but  at  this  moment  the  door  opened,  and  his 
Grace  the  bridegroom  elect  was  announced. 

He  looked  very  black  upon  Mr.   Esmond,   to  whom  he 

made  a  very  low  bow  indeed,  and  kissed  the  hand  of  each 

15  lady  in  his  most  ceremonious  manner.     He  had  come  in  his 

chair  from  the  j^alace  hard  by,  and  wore  his  two  stars  of 

the  Garter  and  the  Thistle. 

''Look,   my  Lord   Duke,"  says  Mrs.   Beatrix,   advancing 
to  him,  and  showing  the  diamoncis  on  her  breast. 
20      ''Diamonds,"  says  his  Grace.     "Hm!   they  seem  pretty." 

"They   are   a   present   on   my   marriage,"   says   Beatrix. 

"From  her  Majesty?"  asks  the  Duke.  "The  Queen  is 
very  good." 

"From  my  cousin  Henry  —  from  our  cousin  Henry"  — 
25  cry  both  the  ladies  in  a  breath. 

"I  have  not  the  honour  of  knowing  the  gentleman.  I 
thought  that  my  Lord  Castlewood  had  no  brother :  and  that 
on  your  ladyship's  side  there  were  no  nephews." 

"From   our   cousin.    Colonel   Henry   Esmond,   my   lord," 

30  says   Beatrix,    taking   the   Colonel's   hand   very   bravely  — 

"who  was  left  guardian  to  us  by  our  father,  and  who  hath 

a  hundred   times   shown   his   love   and   friendship   for    our 

family." 

"The    Duchess    of   Hamilton   receives   no   diamonds   but 
35  from  her  husband,  madam,"  says  the  Duke  —  "may  I  pray 
you  to  restore  these  to  Mr.  Esmond?" 

"I^eatrix  Esmond  may  receive  a  present  from  our  kinsman 
and  benefactor,  my  Lord  Duke,"  says  Lady  Castlewood, 
with  an  air  of  gnuit   dignity.     "She  is  my  daughter  yet: 


>l 


HENRY   ESMOND  387 

and  if  her  mother  sanctions  the  gift  —  no  one  else  hath  the 
right  to  question  it." 

"Kinsman  and  benefactor!"  says  the  Duke.  "I  know  of 
no  kinsman :  and  I  do  not  chuse°  that  my  wife  should  have 
for  benefactor  a "  5 

"My  lord!"  says  Colonel  Esmond. 

"I  am  not  here  to  bandy  words,"  sa3^s  his  Grace  :  "frankly 
I  tell  you  that  your  visits  to  this  house  are  too  freciuent,  and 
that  I  chuse  no  presents  for  the  Duchess  of  Hamilton  from 
gentlemen  that  bear  a  name  they  have  no  right  to."  ic 

"My  lord!"  breaks  out  Lady  Castlewood,  "Mr.  Esmond 
hath  the  best  right  to  that  name  of  any  man  in  the  world : 
and  'tis  as  old  and  as  honourable  as  your  Grace's." 

]\Iy  Lord  Duke  smiled,  and  looked  as  if  Lady  Castlewood 
was  mad,  that  was  so  talking  to  him.  15 

"If  I  called  him  benefactor,"  said  my  mistress,  "it  is 
because  he  has  been  so  to  us  —  yes,  the  noblest,  the  truest, 
the  bravest,  the  dearest  of  benefactors.  He  would  have 
saved  my  husband's  life  from  Mohun's  sword.  He  did  save 
my  boy's,  and  defended  him  from  that  villain.  Are  those  20 
no  benefits?" 

"I  ask  Colonel  Esmond's  pardon,"  says  his  Grace,  if  pos- 
sible more  haughty  than  before ;  "  I  would  say  not  a  word 
that  should  give  him  offence,  and  thank  him  for  his  kindness 
to  your  ladyship's  family.  My  Lord  IMohun  and  I  are  25 
connected,  you  know,  by  marriage  —  though  neither  by 
blood  nor  friendship ;  but  I  must  repeat  what  I  said,  that 
my  wife   can  receive   no   presents  from   Colonel   Esmond." 

"  My  daughter  may  receive  presents  from  the  Head  of  our 
House :  my  daughter  may  thankfully  take  kindness  from  30 
her  father's,  her  mother's,  her  brother's  dearest  friend; 
and  be  grateful  for  one  more  benefit  besides  the  thousand 
we  owe  him,"  cries  Lady  Esmond.  "What  is  a  string  of 
diamond  stones  compared  to  that  affection  he  hath  given 
us  —  our  dearest  preserver  and  benefactor  ?  We  owe  him  35 
not  only  Frank's  Hfe,  but  our  all  —  yes,  our  all,"  says  my 
mistress,  with  a  heightened  colour  and  a  trembling  voice. 
"The  title  we  bear  is  his,  if  he  would  claim  it.  'Tis  we  who 
have  no  right  to  our  name :    not  he  that's  too  great  for  itc 


388  HENRY   ESMOND 

He  sacrificed  his  name  at  my  dying  lord's  bed-side  —  sacri- 
ficed it  to  my  orphan  children;  gave  up  rank  and  honour 
because  he  loved  us  so  nobly.  His  father  was  Viscount  of 
Castlewood  and  Marquis  of  Esmond  before  him ;  and  he  is 
5  his  father's  lawful  son  and  true  heir,  and  we  are  the  recipi- 
ents of  his  bounty,  and  he  the  chief  of  a  house  that's  as  old 
as  your  own.  And  if  he  is  content  to  forgo  his  name  that 
my  child  may  bear  it,  we  love  him  and  honour  him  and  bless 
him  under  whatever  name  he  bears"  —  and  here  the  fond 

lo  and  affectionate  creature  would  have  knelt  to  Esmond  again, 
but  that  he  prevented  her;  and  Beatrix  running  up  to  her 
mother  with  a  pale  face  and  a  cry  of  alarm,  embraced  her  and 
said  "  Mother,  what  is  this  ?  '^ 

"  'Tis    a    family   secret,    my   Lord    Duke,"    says    Colonel 

15  Esmond:    "poor  Beatrix  knew  nothing  of  it:    nor  did  my 

lady  till  a  year  ago.     And  I  have  as  good  a  right  to  resign 

my  title  as  your  Grace's  mother  to  abdicate  hers  to  you." 

"I  should  have  told  everything  to  the  Duke  of  Hamilton," 

said  my  mistress,   "had  his  Grace  applied  to  me  for  my 

20  daughter's  hand  and  not  to  Beatrix.  I  should  have  spoken 
with  you  thi§  very  day  in  private,  my  lord,  had  not  your 
words  brought  about  this  sudden  explanation  —  and  now 
'tis  fit  Beatrix  should  hear  it;  and  know,  as  I  would  have 
all  the  world  know,  what  we  owe  to  our  kinsman  and  patron." 

25  And  then,  in  her  touching  way,  and  having  hold  of  her 
daughter's  hand,  and  speaking  to  her  rather  than  my  Lord 
Duke,  Lady  Castlewood  told  the  story  which  you  know 
already,  —  lauding  up  to  the  skies  her  kinsman's  behaviour. 
On  his  side  Mr.  Esmond  explained  the  reasons  that  seemed 

30  quite  sufficiently  cogent  with  him,  why  the  succession  in 
the  family,  as  at  present  it  stood,  should  not  be  disturbed; 
and  he  should  remain,  as  he  was,  Colonel  Esmond. 

"And  Marquis  of  lOsmond,  my  lord,"  says  his  Grace,  with 
a  low  bow.     "Permit  me  to  ask  your  lordship's  pardon  for 

35  words  that  were  utt(;r(Ml  in  ignorance ;  and  to  beg  for  the 
favour  of  your  friondshij).  To  be  allied  to  you,  sir,  must 
be  an  honour  under  whatever  name  you  are  known"  (so 
his  Grace  was  plc^ascnl  to  say)  :  "and  in  return  for  the  splen- 
did present  you  make  my  wife,  your  kinswoman,  I  hope  you 


HENRY   ESMOND  389 

will  please  to  command  any  ser\^ce  that  James  Douglas° 
can  perform.  I  shall  never  be  easy  until  I  repay  you  a  part 
of  my  obligations  at  least;  and  ere  very  long,  and  with  the 
mission  her  Majesty  hath  given  me/'  saj^s  the  Duke,  "that 
may  perhaps  be  in  my  power.  I  shall  esteem  it  as  a  favour,  5 
my  lord,  if  Colonel  Esmond  will  give  away  the  bride.'' 

"And  if  he  will  take  the  usual  payment  in  advance,  he  is 
welcome,"  says  Beatrix,  stepping  to  him;  and  as  Esmond 
kissed  her,  she  whispered,  "Oh,  why  didn't  I  know  you 
before?"  ic 

INIy  Lord  Duke  was  as  hot  as  a  flame  at  this  salute,  but 
said  never  a  word :  Beatrix  made  him  a  proud  curtsey, 
and  the  two  ladies  quitted  the  room  together. 

"When  does  your  Excellency  go  to  Paris?"  asks  Colonel 
Esmond.  '  15 

"  As  soon  after  the  ceremony  as  may  be,"  his  Grace  answered. 
"  'Tis  fixed  for  the  first  of  December :  it  cannot  be  sooner. 
The  equipage  will  not  be  ready  till  then.  The  Queen  intends 
the  embass}'  should  be  very  grand  —  and  I  have  law  business 
to  settle.  That  ill-omened  Mohun  has  come,  or  is  coming,  20 
to  London  again :  we  are  in  a  lawsuit  about  my  late  Lord 
Gerard's  property;    and  he  hath  sent  to  me  to  jaeet  him." 


CHAPTER   V 

MOHUN   APPEARS   FOR   THE   LAST   TIME    IN   THIS   HISTORY 

Besides  my  Lord  Duke  of  Hamilton  and  Brandon,  who, 
for  family  reasons,  had  kindly  promised  his  protection  and 
patronage  to  Colonel  Esmond,  he  had  other  great  friends  25 
in  power  now,  both  able  and  willing  to  assist  him,  and  he 
might,  with  such  allies,  look  forward  to  as  fortunate  advance- 
ment in  civil  life  at  home  as  he  had  got  rapid  promotion 
abroad.  His  Grace  was  magnanimous  enough  to  offer  to 
take  Mr.  Esmond  as  secretary  on  his  Paris  embassy,  but  no  33 
doubt  he  intended  that  proposal  should  be  rejected;  at 
any  rate,  Esmond  could  not  bear  the  thoughts  of  attending 
his  mistress  farther  than  the  church-door  after  her  marriage, 


390  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  so  declined  that  offer  which  his  generous  rival  made 
him. 

Other  gentlemen  in  power  were  liberal  at  least  of  compli- 
ments and  promises  to  Colonel  Esmond.  Mr.  Harley,  now 
5  become  my  Lord  Oxford  and  Mortimer,  and  installed  Knight 
of  the  Garter  on  the  same  day  as  his  Grace  of  Hamilton 
had  received  the  same  honour,  sent  to  the  Colonel  to  say 
that  a  seat  in  Parhament  should  be  at  his  disposal  presently, 
and  Mr.  St.  John  held  out  many  flattering  hopes  of  advance- 

10  ment  to  the  Colonel  when  he  should  enter  the  House.  Es- 
mond's friends  were  all  successful,  and  the  most  successful 
and  triumphant  of  all  was  his  dear  old  commander.  General 
Webb,  who  was  now  appointed  Lieutenant-General  of  the 
Land  Forces,   and  received  with  particular  honour  by  the 

15  Ministry,  by  the  Queen,  and  the  people  out  of  doors,  who 
huzzaed  the  brave  chief  when  they  used  to  see  him  in  his 
chariot,  going  to  the  House  or  to  the  Drawing- Room,  or 
hobbling  on  foot  to  his  coach  from  St.  Stephen's  upon  his 
glorious  old  crutch  and  stick,  and  cheered  him  as  loud  as 

20  they  had  ever  done  Marlborough. 

That  great  Duke  was  utterly  disgraced;  and  honest  old 
Webb  dated  all  his  Grace's  misfortunes  from  Wynendael, 
and  vowed  that  Fate  served  the  traitor  right.  Duchess 
Sarah  had  also  gone  to  ruin;    she  had  been  forced  to  give 

25  up  her  keys,  and  her  places,  and  her  pensions: — /'Ah, 
ah!^'  says  Webb,  "she  would  have  locked  up  three  milhons 
of  French  crowns  with  her  keys,  had  I  but  been  knocked 
on  the  head,  but  I  stopped  that  convoy  at  Wynendael." 
Our  enemy  Cardonnel  was  turned  out  of  the  House  of  Com- 

30  mons  (along  with  Mr.  Walpole)  for  malversation  of  publick 
money.  Cadogan  lost  his  place  of  Lieutenant  of  the  Tower. 
Marlborough's  daughters  resigned  their  posts  of  ladies  of 
the  bed-chamber,  and  so  comi)lete  was  the  Duke's  disgrace, 
that    his    son-in-law,    Lord     J^ridgewater,°    was    absolutely 

35  obHged  to  give  uj)  his  lodging  at  St.  James's,  and  had  his 
half-pension,  as  Master  of  the  Horse,  taken  away.  But  I 
think  the  lowest  depth  of  Marl])()rough's  fall  was  when  he 
humbly  sent  to  ask  General  Webb  when  he  might  wait 
111)011  him;    he  who  liad  commanded  the  stout  old  General, 


HENRY   ESMOND  391 

who  had  injured  him  and  sneered  at  him,  who  had  kept 
him  dangUng  in  his  antechamber,  who  could  not  even  after 
his  great  service  condescend  to  write  him  a  letter  in  his  own 
liand.  The  nation  was  as  eager  for  peace,  as  ever  it  had  been 
hot  for  war.  The  Prince  of  Savoy  came  amongst  us,°  had  5 
his  audience  of  the  Queen,  and  got  his  famous  Sword  of 
Honour,  and  strove  with  all  his  force  to  form  a  Whig  party 
together,  to  bring  over  the  young  Prince  of  Hanover  —  to 
do  any  thing  which  might  prolong  the  war,  and  consummate 
the  ruin  of  the  old  sovereign  whom  he  hated  so  implacably.  la 
But  the  nation  was  tired  of  the  struggle ;  so  completely 
wearied  of  it  that  not  even  our  defeat  at  Denain°  could 
rouse  us  into  any  anger,  though  such  an  action  so  lost  two 
years  before,  would  have  set  all  England  in  a  fury.  Twas 
easy  to  see  that  the  great  Marlborough  was  not  with  the  army.  15 
Eugene  was  obliged  to  fall  back  in  a  rage,  and  forgo  the 
dazzling  revenge  of  his  life.  'Twas  in  vain  the  Duke's  side 
asked:  "Would  we  suffer  our  arms  to  be  insulted?  Would 
w^e  not  send  back  the  only  champion  who  could  repair  our 
honour?"  The  nation  had  had  its  bellyful  of  fighting;  2a 
nor  could  taunts  or  outcries  goad  up  our  Britons  any  more. 
For  a  statesman,  that  was  always  prating  of  liberty,  and 
had  the  grandest  philosophick  maxims  in  his  mouth,  it  must 
be  owned  that  Mr.  St.  John  sometimes  rather  acted  like  a 
Turkish  than  a  Greek  philosopher,  and  especially  fell  foul  25 
of  one  unfortunate  set  of  men,  the  men  of  letters,  with  a 
tyranny  a  little  extraordinary  in  a  man  who  professed  to 
respect  their  calling  so  much.  The  literary  controversy 
at  this  time  was  very  bitter,  the  government  side  was  the 
winning  one,  the  popular  one,  and  I  think  might  have  been  30 
the  merciful  one.  Twas  natural  that  the  opposition  should 
be  pee\'ish  and  cry  out ;  some  men  did  so  from  their  hearts, 
admiring  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  prodigious  talents  and 
deploring  the  disgrace  of  the  greatest  general  the  world 
ever  knew;  'twas  the  stomach  that  caused  other  patriots  35 
to  grumble,  and  such  men  cried  out  because  they  were  poor, 
and  paid  to  do  so.  Against  these  my  Lord  Bolingbroke 
never  showed  the'  shghtest  mercy,  whipping  a  dozen  into 
prison  or  into  the  pillory  without  the  least  commiseration. 


392  HENRY  ESMOND 

From  having  been  a  man  of  arms  Mr.  Esmond  had  no\^ 
come  to  be  a  man  of  letters,  but  on  a  safer  side  than  tliat  in 
which  the  above-cited  poor  fellows  ventured  their  liberties  and 
ears.  There  was  no  danger  in  ours  which  was  the  winning 
5  side;  besides  Mr.  Esmond  pleased  himself  by  thinking  that 
he  writ  hke  a  gentleman  if  he  did  not  always  succeed  as  a  wit. 
Of  the  famous  wits  of  that  age,  who  have  rendered  Queen 
Anne's  reign  illustrious,  and  whose  works  will  be  in  all  EngUsh- 
men's  hands  in  ages  yet  to  come,  Mr.  Esmond  saw  many, 

lo  but  at  publick  places  chiefly;  never  having  a  great  intimacy 
with  any  of  them  except  with  honest  Dick  Steele  and 
Mr.  Addison,  who  parted  company  with  Esmond,  however, 
when  that  gentleman  became  a  declared  Tory  and  hved  on 
close  terms  with   the    leading   persons   of   that  party.     Ad- 

15  dison  kept  himself  to  a  few  friends,  and  very  rarely  opened 
himself  except  in  their  company.  A  man  more  upright 
and  conscientious  than  he,  it  was  not  possible  to  find  in 
publick  life,  and  one  whose  conversation  was  so  various, 
easy,  and  delightful.     Writing  now  in  my  mature  years,  I 

20  own  that  I  think  Addison's  poUticks  were  the  right,  and 
were  my  time  to  come  over  again,  I  would  be  a  Whig  in 
England,  and  not  a  Tory;  but  with  people  that  take  a  side  in 
politicks,  'tis  men  rather  than  principles  that  commonly 
liind  them.     A  kindness  or  a  slight  puts  a  man  under  one 

25  flag  or  the  other,  and  he  marches  with  it  to  the  end  of  the 
campaign.  Esmond's  master  in  war  was  injured  by  IMarl- 
borough,  and  hated  him ;  and  the  lieutenant  fought  the 
quarrels  of  his  leader.  Webb  coming  to  London  was  used 
as  a  weapon  by  Marlborough's  enemies  (and  true  steel  he  was, 

30  that  honest  chief) ;  nor  was  his  aide-de-camp,  Mr.  Esmond, 
an  unfaithful  or  unworthy  partisan.  Tis  strange  here, 
and  on  a  foreign  soil,  and  in  a  land  that  is  indei)endent  in 
all  but  tlie  name  (for  that  the  North  American  colonies^ 
shall  remain  de|jendents  on  yonder  little  island  for  twenty 

35  years  rnoix;,  I  never  can  think),  to  remember  how  the  nation 
at  home  seemed  to  give  itself  up  to  the  domination  of  one  or 
oth(;r  aristocratic  party,  and  took  a  Hanoverian  king,  or  a 
French  one,  according  as  cither  prevailed.  And  while 
the  Tories,  the  October  Club°  gentlemen,  the  High  Church 


HENRY   ESMOND  393 

parsons  that  held  by  the  Church  of  England,  were  for  having 
a  Papist  Idng,  for  whom  many  of  their  Scottish  and  English 
leaders,  firm  churchmen  all,  laid  down  their  li\'es  with  ad- 
mirable loyalty  and  devotion;  they  were  governed  by  men 
who  had  notoriously  no  religion  at  all,  but  used  it  as  they  5 
would  use  any  opinion  for  the  purpose  of  forwarding  their 
own  ambition.  The  Whigs,  on  the  other  hand,  who  professed 
attachment,  to  rehgion  and  Uberty  too,  were  compelled  to 
send  to  Holland  or  Hanover  for  a  monarch  around  whom 
they  could  rally.  A  strange  series  of  compromises  is  that  10 
Enghsh  history;  compromise  of  principle,  comjDromise  of 
party,  compromise  of  worship !  The  lovers  of  English 
freedom  and  independence  submitted  their  rehgious  con- 
sciences to  an  Act  of  Parhament ;  could  not  consolidate 
their  liberty  without  sending  to  Zell°  or  the  Hague  for  a  15 
king  to  hve  under ;  and  could  not  find  amongst  the  proudest 
people  in  the  world  a  man  speaking  their  own  language, 
and  understanding  their  laws,  to  govern  them.  The  Tory 
and  High  Church  patriots  were  ready  to  die  in  defence  of  a 
Papist  family  that  had  sold  us  to  France ;  the  great  Whig  20 
nobles,  the  sturdy  Ptepublican  recusants,  who  had  cut  off 
Charles  Stuart's  head°  for  treason,  were  fain  to  accept  a  king, 
whose  title  came, to  him  through  a  royal  grandmother, 
whose  own  royal  grandmother's  head°  had  fallen  under 
Queen  Bess's  hatchet.  And  our  proud  English  nobles  25 
sent  to  a  petty  German  town  for  a  monarch  to  come  and 
reign  in  London;  and  our  prelates  kissed  the  ugly  hands  of 
his  Dutch°  mistresses,  and  thought  it  no  dishonour.  In 
England  you  can  but  belong  to  one  party  or  t'other,  and  you 
take  the  house  you  hve  in  with  all  its  encumbrances,  its  30 
retainers,  its  antique  discomforts,  and  ruins  even;  you 
patch  up,  but  you  never  build  up  anew.  Will  we  of  the  new 
world  sulDmit  much  longer,  even  nominally,  to  this  antient 
British  superstition?  There  are  signs  of  the  times  which 
make  me  think  that  ere  long  we  shall  care  as  little  about  35 
King  George  here,  and  peers  temporal  and  peers  spiritual, 
as  we  do  for  King  Canute  or  the  Druids.  ° 

This  chapter   began  about  the  wits,   my  grandson  may 
say,  and  hath  wandered  very  far  from  their  company.     The 


39  t  HENRY   ESMOND 

pleasantest  of  the  wits  I  knew  were  the  Doctors  Garth  anc^ 
Arbuthnot,  and  Mr.  Gay,°  the  author  of  Trivia,  the  most 
charming  kind  soul  that  ever  laughed  at  a  joke  or  cracked  a 
bottle.  Mr.  Prior  I  saw,  and  he  was  the  earthen  pot  swim- 
5  ming  with  the  pots  of  brass  down  the  stream,  and  always 
and  justly  frightened  lest  he  should  break  in  the  voyage. 
I  met  him  both  at  London  and  Paris,  where  he  was  performing 
piteous  congees  to  the  Duke  of  Shrewsbury, °  not  having 
courage  to  support  the  dignity  which  his  undeniable  genius 

lo  and  talent  had  won  him,°  and  writing  coaxing  letters  to 
Secretary  St.  John,  and  thinking  about  his  plate  and  his 
place,  and  what  on  earth  should  iDecome  of  him,  should  his 
party  go  out.  The  famous  Mr.  Congreve  I  saw  a  dozen  of 
times  at  Button's,  a  splendid  wreck  of  a  man,  magnificently 

15  attired,  and  though  gouty,  and  almost  blind,  bearing  a  brave 
face  against  fortune. 

The  great  Mr.  Pope°  (of  whose  prodigious  genius  I  have  no 
words  to  express  my  admiration)  was  cjuite  a  puny  lad  at 
this  time,  appearing  seldom  in  publick  places.     There  were 

20  hundreds  of  men,  wits,  and  pretty  fellows  frequenting  the 
theatres  and  coffee-houses  of  that  day  —  whom  "  nunc 
perscribere  longumest.°"  Indeed  I  think  the  most  brilHant 
of  that  sort  I  ever  saw  was  not  till  fifteen  years  afterwards, 
when  I  paid  my  last  visit  in  England,  and  met  young  Harry 

25  Fielding, °  son  of  the  Fielding  that  served  in  Spain  and  after- 
wards in  Flanders  with  us,  and  who  for  fun  and  humour 
seemed  to  top  them  all.  As  for  the  famous  Dr.  Swift,  I  can  say 
of  him,  "Vidi  tantum.°"  He  was  in  London  all  these  years 
up  to  the  death  of  the  Queen ;    and   in  a  hundred  publick 

30  places  where  I  saw  him,  but  no  more  ;  he  never  missed  Court 
of  a  Sunday,  where  once  or  twice  he  was  pointed  out  to  your 
grandfather. °  He  would  have  sought  me  out  eagerly 
enough  had  I  been  a  great  man  with  a  title  to  my  name,  or  a 
star  on  my  coat.    At  ('ourt  the  Doctor  had  no  eyes  but  for  the 

35  ^'^^'Y  greatest.  Lord  Treasui-er  and  St.  John  used  to  call  him 
Jonathan,  and  they  paid  him  with  this  cheai)  coin  for  the 
service  they  took  of  him.  He  writ  their  lanipoons,  fought  their 
enemies,  flogged  and  bulli(Hl  in  their  service,  and  it  must  be 
owned  with  a  consummate  skill  and  fierceness.     'Tis  said  he 


HENRY   ESMOND  -395 

hath  lost  his  intellect  now,°  and  forgotten  his  wrongs  and  his 
rage  against  mankind.  I  have  always  thought  of  him  and  of 
Marlborough  as  the  two  greatest  men  of  that  age.  I  have 
read  his  books  (who  doth  not  know  them  ?)  here  in  our  calm 
woods,  and  imagine  a  giant  to  myself  as  I  think  of  him,  a  5 
lonely  fallen  Prometheus, °  groaning  as  the  vulture  tears 
him.  Prometheus  I  saw,  but  when  first  I  ever  had  any  words 
with  him,  the  giant  stepped  out  of  a  sedan  chair  in  the 
Poultry,  °  whither  he  had  come  with  a  tipsy  Irish  servant° 
parading  before  him,  who  announced  him,  bawling  out  his  10 
Reverence's  name,  whilst  his  master  below  was  as  yet  hag- 
gling with  the  chairman. °  I  disliked  this  Mr.  Swift,  and 
heard  many  a  story  about  him,  of  his  conduct  to  men,  and 
his  words  to  women.  He  could  flatter  the  great  as  much 
as  he  could  bully  the  weak,  and  Mr.  Esmond,  being  younger  15 
and  hotter  in  that  day  than  now,  was  determined  should 
he  ever  meet  this  dragon  not  to  run  away  from  his  teeth 
and  his  fire. 

Men  have  all  sorts  of  motives  which  carry  them  onwards 
in  life,  and  are  driven  into  acts  of  desperation,  or  it  may  be  20 
of  distinction,  from  a  hundred  different  causes.  There  was 
one  comrade  of  Esmond's,  an  honest  little  Irish  lieutenant  of 
Handyside's,  who  owed  so  much  money  to  a  camp  suttler, 
that  he  began  to  make  love  to  the  man's  daughter,  intending 
to  pay  his  debt  that  way;  and  at  the  battle  of  Malplaquet,  25 
flying  away  from  the  debt  and  lady  too,  he  rushed  so  des- 
perately on  the  French  lines,  that  he  got  his  company ;  and 
came  a  captain  out  of  the  action,  and  had  to  marry  the  sut- 
tler's  daughter  after  all,  who  brought  him  his  cancelled  debt 
to  her  father  as  poor  Roger 's°  fortune.  To  run  out  of  the  30 
reach  of  bill  and  marriage,  he  ran  on  the  enemy's  pikes; 
and  as  these  did  not  kill  him  he  was  thrown  back  upon  t'other 
horn  of  his  dilemma.  Our  great  Duke  at  the  same  battle 
was  fighting,  not  the  French,  but  the  Tories  in  England : 
and  risking  his  life  and  the  army's,  not  for  his  country  but  35 
for  his  pay  and  places;  and  for  fear  of  his  wife  at  home, 
that  only  being  in  life  whom  he  dreaded.  I  have  asked 
about  men  in  my  own  company  (new  drafts  of  poor  country 
boys  were  perpetually  coming  over  to  us  during  the  wars, 


396  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  brought  from  the  'plough-share  to  the  sword),  arwi 
found  that  a  half  of  them  under  the  flags  were  driven  thither 
on  account  of  a  woman  :  one  fellow  was  jilted  by  his  mistress 
and  took  the  shilling"  in  despair;  another  jilted  the  girl, 
5  and  fled  from  her  and  the  parish  to  the  tents  where  the  law 
could  not  disturb  him.  Why  go  on  particularising?  What 
can  the  sons  of  Adam  and  Eve  expect,  but  to  continue 
in  that  course  of  love  and  trouble  their  father  and  mother 
set  out  on?     O  my  grandson!     I  am  drawing  nigh  to  the 

10  end  of  that  period  of  my  history,  when  I  was  acquainted 
with  the  great  world  of  England  and  Europe,  my  years 
are  past  the  Hebrew  poet's  hmit,°  and  I  say  unto  thee,  all 
my  troubles,  and  joys  too  for  that  matter,  have  come  from 
a  woman;   as  thine    will    when  thv  destined  course   begins. 

15  'Twas  a  woman  that  made  a  soldier-  of  me,  that  set  me 
intriguing  afterwards;  I  beheve  I  would  have  spun  smocks 
for  her  had  she  so  bidden  me;  what  strength  I  had  in  my 
head  I  would  have  given  her :  hath  not  every  man  in  his 
degree  had  his  Omphale  and  Dalilah°?     Mine  befooled  me 

20  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames,  and  in  dear  old  England ;  thou 
mayest  find  thine  own  by  Rappahannoc. 

To  please  that  woman  then  I  tried  to  distinguish  myselt 
as  a  soldier,  and  afterwards  as  a  wit  and  a  politician;  as 
to  please  another  I  would  have  put  on  a  black  cassock  and 

25  a  pair  of  bands,  and  had  done  so  but  that  a  superior  fate 
intervened  to  defeat  that  project.  And  I  say,  I  think  the 
world  is  like  Captain  Esmond's  comi)any  I  spoke  of  anon; 
and,  could  you  see  every  man's  career  in  life,  you  would  find  a 
woman  clogging  him ;   or  clinging  round  his  march  and  stop- 

30  ping  him;  or  cheering  him  and  goading  him;  or  be(;koning 
him  out  of  her  chariot,  so  that  he  goes  up  to  her,  and  leaves 
the  race  to  be  run  without  him ;  or  bringing  him  the  a})ple 
and  saying  "  Eat";  or  fetching  him  the  daggers  and  whisper- 
ing "Kill°  !  yonder  lies  Duncan,  and  a  crown,  and  an  oppor- 

35  tunity." 

Your  grandfather  fought  with  more  effect  as  a  politician 
than  as  a  wit;  and  having  private  animosities  and  grievances 
of  his  own  and  his  (jieneral's  against  the  great  Duke  in  com- 
mand of  the  army,  and  more  information  on  military  matters 


HENRY   ESMOND  397 

than  most  writers,  who  had  never  seen  beyond  the  fire  of  a 
tobacco-pipe  at  Wills 's,°  he  was  enabled  to  do  good  service 
for  that  cause  which  he  embarked  in,  and  for  Mr.  St.  John 
and  his  party.  But  he  disdained  che  abuse  in  which  some 
of  the  Tory  writers  indulged;  for  instance  Dr.  Swift,  who  5 
actually  chose  to  doubt  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  courage, 
and  was  pleased  to  hint  that  his  Grace's  military  capacity 
was  doubtfid :  nor  were  Esmond's  performances  worse  for 
the  effect  they  were  intended  to  produce  (though  no  doubt 
they  could  not  injure  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  nearly  so  ic 
much  in  the  publick  eyes  as  the  malignant  attacks  of  Swift 
did,  which  were  carefully  directed  so  as  to  blacken  and  degrade 
him),  because  they  were  writ  openly  and  fairly  by  Mr.  Esmond, 
who  made  no  disguise  of  them,  who  was  now  out  of  the 
army,  and  who  never  attacked  the  prochgious  courage  and  15 
talents,  only  the  selfishness  and  rapacity  of  the  chief. 

The  Colonel  then,  ha\^ng  writ  a  paper  for  one  of  the  Tory 
journals,  called  the  Post-Boy  (a  letter  upon  Bouchain,  that 
the  town  talked  about  for  two  whole  days,  when  the  appear- 
ance of  an.  Italian  singer  supplied  a  fresh  subject  for  con-  20 
versation),  and  having  business  at  the  Exchange  where 
Mrs.  Beatrix  wanted  a  pair  of  gloves  or  a  fan  very  likely; 
Esmond  went  to  correct  his  paper,  and  was  sitting  at  the 
printer's,  when  the  famous  Dr.  Swift  came  in,  his  Irish 
fellow  with  him  that  used  to  walk  before  his  chair,  ?nd  25 
bawled  out  his  master's  name  with  great  dignity. 

jlr.  Esmond  was  waiting  for  the  printer  too,  whose  wife  had 
gone  to  the  tavern  to  fetch  him,  and  was  meantime  engaged 
in  drawing  a  picture  of  a  soldier  on  horseback  for  a  dirty 
little  pretty  boy  of  the  printer's  wife,  whom  she  had  left  30 
behind  her. 

"I  presume  you  are  the  ecUtor  of  the  Post-Boy,  sir?'' 
says  the  Doctor,  in  a  grating  voice  that  had  an  Irish  twang° ; 
and  he  looked  at  the  Colonel  from  under  his  two  bush}'  eye- 
brows with  a  pair  of  very  clear  blue  eyes.  His  complexion  35 
was  muddy,  his  figure  rather  fat,  his  chin  double.  He  wore  a 
shabby  cassock,  and  a  shabby  hat  over  his  black  wig,  and  he 
pulled  out  a  p^reat  gold  watch,  at  which  he  looks°  very 
fic^rce. 


398  HENRY    ESMOND 

''I  am  but  a  contributor,  Doctor  Swift,"  says  Esmond, 
with  the  Uttle  boy  still  on  his  knee.  He  was  sitting  with 
his  back  in  the  window,  so  that  the  Doctor  could  not  see  him. 

''Who  told  you  I  was  Doctor  Swift?"  says  the  Doctor, 
5  eyeing  the   other  very  haughtily. 

"Your  Reverence's  valet  bawled  out  your  name,"  says 
the  Colonel.    "I  should  judge  you  brought  him  from  Ireland." 

"And  pray,  sir,  what  right  have  you  to  judge  whether  my 
servant  came  from  Ireland  or  no  ?     I  want  to  speak  with  your 
10  employer,  Mr.  Leach.     I'll  thank  ye  go  fetch  him." 

"Where's  your  papa.  Tommy?"  asks  the  Colonel  of  the 
child,  a  smutty  little  wretch  in  a  frock. 

Instead  of  answering,  the  child  begins  to  cry ;  the  Doctor's 
appearance  had  no  doubt  frightened  the  poor  Uttle  imp. 
15      "Send  that  squalhng  httlo  brat  about  his  business,  and  do 
what  I  bid  ye,  sir,"  says  the  Doctor. 

"I  must  finish   the   picture   first  for  Tommy,"  says  the 
Colonel,    laughing.     "Here,    Tommy,    will    you    have    3'our 
Pandour  with  whiskers  or  without?" 
20      "  Whisters,"  says  Tommy,  quite  intent  on  the  picture. 

"Who  the  devil  are  ye,  sir?"  crie^  the  Doctor;  "are  ye  a 
printer's  man  or  are  ye  not?"  he  pronounced  it  like  naught. 

"Your  Reverence   needn't  raise  the  devil  to  ask  who  I 
am,"  says  Colonel  Esmond.     "Did  you  ever  hear  of  Doctor 
25  Faustus,°   little    Tommy?     or    Friar    Bacon,    who   invented 
gunpowder,  and  set  the  Thames  on  fire?" 

Mr.  Swift  turned  quite  red,  almost  purple.  "I  did  not 
intend  any  offence,  sir,"  says  he. 

"I  dare  say,  sir,  you  offended  without  meaning,"  says  the 
30  other,   drily. 

"Who  are  ye,  sir?  Do  you  know  who  I  am,  sir?  You 
are  one  of  the  pack  of  Grub  Street  scribblcrs°  that  my 
friend  Mr.  Secretary  hath  laid  by  the  heels.  How  dare  ye, 
sir,  speak  to  m(;  in  this  tone  ?  "  cries  the  Doctor  in  a  great  fume. 
35  "I  beg  your  honour's  humble  ])ardon  if, I  have  offended 
your  honour,"  says  Esmond  in  a  tone  of  great  humility. 
"  Rather  than  be  sent  to  the  Compter,"  or  be  put  in  the 
])illory,  there's  nothing  I  wouldn't  do.  Jiut,  Mrs.  Leach, 
the  printer's  lady,  told  me  to  mind  Tommy  whilst  she  went 


HENRY   ESMOND  399 

for  her  husband  to  the  tavern,  and  I  daren't  leave  the  child 
lest  he  should  fall  into  the  fire;  but  if  your  Reverence  will 
hold  him '' 

''I  take  the  little  beast!"  says  the  Doctor,  starting  back. 
''I   am   engaged   to   your   betters,    fellow.     Tell  Mr.    Leach  5 
that  when  he  makes  an  appointment  with  Dr.  Swift  he  had 
best  keep  it,  do  ye  hear?     And  keep  a  respectful  tongue  in 
your  head,  sir,  when  you  address  a  person  Mke  me." 

"I'm  but  a  poor  broken-down  soldier,"  says  the  Colonel, 
"and  I've  seen  better  days,  though  I  am  forced  now  to  turn  tc 
my  hand  to  writing.     We  can't  help  our  fate,  sir." 

"You're  the  person  that  Mr.  Leach  hath  spoken  to  me  of,  I 
presume.  Have  the  goodness  to  speak  civilly  when  you  are 
spoken  to ;  —  and  tell  Leach  to  call  at  my  lodgings  in  Bury 
Street, °  and  bring  the  papers  with  him  to-night  at  ten  15 
o'clock.  And  the  next  time  you  see  me,  you'll  know  me, 
and  be  civil,  Mr.  Kemp." 

Poor  Kemp,  who  had  been  a  lieutenant  at  the  beginning  of 
the  war,  and  fallen  into  misfortune,  was  the  writer  of  the 
Post- Boy,  and  now  took  honest  ]\Ir.  Leach's  pay  in  place  of  20 
her  Majesty's.  Esmond  had  seen  this  gentleman,  and  a 
very  ingenious,  hardworking,  honest  fellow  he  was,  toiling 
to  give  bread  to  a  great  family,  and  watching  up  many  a  long 
winter  night  to  keep  the  wolf  from  his  door.  And  Mr.  St. 
John,  who  had  hberty  always  on  his  tongue,  had  just  sent  a  25 
dozen  of  the  opposition  writers  into  prison,  and  one  actually 
into  the  pillory,  for  w^hat  he  called  libels,  but  hbels  not  half 
so  violent  as  those  writ  on  our  side.  With  regard  to  this 
very  piece  of  tyranny,  Esmond  had  remonstrated  strongly 
w^th  the  Secretary,  who  laughed,  and  said  the  rascals  were  30 
served  quite  right;  and  told  Esmond  a  joke  of  Swift's 
regarding  the  matter.  Nay,  more,  this  Irishman,  when  St. 
John  was  about  to  pardon  a  poor  wretch  condemned  to 
death  for  rape,  absolutely  prevented  the  Secretary  from 
exercising  this  act  of  good  nature,  and  boasted  that  he  had  35 
had  the  man  hanged ;  and  great  as  the  Doctor's  genius  might 
be,  and  splendid  his  ability,  Esmond  for  one  would  affect 
no  love  for  him,  and  never  desired  to  make  his  acquaintance. 
The  Doctor  was  at  Court  every  Sunday  assiduously  enough,  a 


400  HENRY   ESMOND 

place  the  Colonel  frequented  but  rarely,  though  he  had 
a  great  inducement  to  go  there  in  the  person  of  a  fair  Maid  of 
Honour  of  her  Majesty's;  and  the  airs  and  patronage  Mr. 
Swift  gave  himself,  forgetting  gentlemen  of  his  country 
5  whom  he  knew  perfectly,  his  loud  talk  at  once  insolent  and 
servile,  na}",  perhaps  his  very  intimacy  with  Lord  Treasurer 
and  the  Secretary,  who  indulged  all  his  freaks  and  called 
him  Jonathan,  you  may  be  sure  were  remarked  by  many  a 
person  of  whom  the  proud  priest  himself  took  no  note,  during 

10  that  time  of  his  vanity  and  triumph. 

Twas  but  three  days  after  the  15th  of  November,.  1712, 
(Esmond  minds  him  well  of  the  date),  that  he  went  by 
invitation  to  dine  with  his  General,  the  foot  of  whose  table 
he  used  to  take  on  these  festive  occasions,  as  he  had  done 

15  at  many  a  board,  hard  and  plentiful,  during  the  campaign. 
This  was  a  great  feast,  and  of  the  latter  sort ;  the  honest  old 
gentleman  loved  to  treat  his  friends  splendidly :  his  Grace 
of  Ormonde°  before  he  joined  his  army  as  generalissimo, 
my  Lord  Viscount  Bolingbroke,  one  of  her  Majesty's  Secre- 

20  taries  of  State,  my  Lord  Orkney  that  had  served  with  us 
abroad,  being  of  the  party.  His  Grace  of  Hamilton,  Master 
of  the  Ordnance,  and  in  whose  honour  the  feast  had  been 
given,  upon  his  approaching  departure  as  Ambassador  to 
Paris,  had  sent  an  excuse  to  General  Webb,  at  two  o'clock, 

25  but  an  hour  before  the  dinner  :  nothing  but  the  most  immedi- 
ate business,  his  Grace  said,  should  have  prevented  him 
having  the  pleasure  of  drinking  a  parting  glass  to  the  health 
of  (MMieral  Webb.  His  absence  disapjxiintcd  Esmond's 
old  chief,  who  suffered  much  from  his  wounds  besides;   and 

30  thougli  the  company  was  grand,  it  was  rather  gloomy.  St. 
John  came  last,  and  brought  a  friend  with  him:  —  "I'm 
sure,"  says  my  General,  bowing  very  politely,  "my  table 
hath  always  a  place  for  Dr.  Swift." 

Mr.  Esmond  went  uj)  to  the  Doctor  with  a  bow  and  a  smile ; 

35  — "I  gave  Dr.  Swift's  message,"  says  he,  "to  the  printer: 
I  hope  he  l)rought  your  pamphlet  to  yovu*  lodgings  in  time." 
Indeed  poor  Leach  had  come  to  his  house  very  soon  after 
the  Doctor  left  it,  l)eing  brought  away  rathcu*  tipsy  from  the 
tavern  by  his  thrifty  wife ;    and  he  talked  of  Cousin  Swift 


/ 


HENRY    ESMOND  401 


ill  a  maudlin  way,  though  of  course  Mr.  Esmond  did  not 
alhide  to  this  relationship.  The  Doctor  scowled,  blushed, 
and  was  much  confused,  and  said  scarce  a  word  during  the 
whole  of  dinner.  A  very  little  stone  will  sometimes  knock 
down  these  Gohaths  of  wit ;  and  this  one  was  often  discom-  5 
fited  when  met  by  a  man  of  any  spirit;  he  took  his  place 
sulkily,  put  water  in  his  wine  that  the  others  drank  plenti- 
fully, and  scarce  said  a  word. 

The  talk  was  about  the  affairs  of  the  day,  or  rather  about 
persons   than   affairs :    my   Lady   INIarlborough's   fury,    her  10 
daughters  in  old   clothes  and  mob-caps  looking  out  from 
their  windows  and  seeing  the  company  pass  to  the  Drawing- 
Room ;    the  gentleman-usher's  horror  when  the   Prince  of 
Savoy  was  introduced  to  her  Majesty  in  a  tie-wig,  no  man 
out  of  a  full-bottomed  perriwig  ever  having  kissed  the  Royal  it; 
hand  before;    about  the  Mohawks°  and  the  damage  they 
were  doing,  rushing  through  the  town,  killing  and  murdering. 
Some  one  said  the  ill-omened  face  of  Mohun  had  been  seen  at 
the  theatre  the  night  before,  and  iMacartney  and  Meredith" 
with  him.     Meant  to  be  a  feast,  the  meeting,  in  spite  of  20 
drink  and  talk,  was  as  dismal  as  a  funeral.     Every  topick 
started  subsided  into  gloom.     His  Grace  of  Ormonde  went 
away  because  the  conversation  got  upon  Denain,  where  we 
had  been  defeated  in  the  last  campaign.     Esmond's  General 
was  affected  at  the  allusion  to  this  action  too,  for  his  comrade  25 
of  Wynendael,  the  Count  of  Nassau  Woudenberg,  had  been 
slain  there.     ^Ir.  Swift,  when  Esmond  pledged  him,  said  he 
drank  no  wine,  and  took  his  hat  from  the  peg  and  went 
away,  beckoning  my  Lord  Bolingbroke  to  follow  him;    but 
the  other  bade  him  take  his  chariot  and  save  his  coach-hire,  30 
he  had  to  speak  with  Colonel  Esmond;    and  when  the  rest 
of   the    company  withdrew   to    cards,  these    two    remained 
behind  in  the  dark. 

Bolingbroke  always  spoke  freely  when  he  had  drunk 
freely.  His  enemies  could  get  any  secret  out  of  him  in  that  35 
condition ;  women  were  even  employed  to  pl}^  him,  and  take 
his  words  down.  I  have  heard  that  my  Lord  Stair,  three 
years  after,  when  the  Secretary  fled  to  France  and  became 
the  Pretender's  minister,  got  all  the  information  he  wanted 
2d 


402  HENRY  ESMOND 

by  putting  female  spies  over  St.  John  in  his  cups.  He  spoke 
freely  now:  —  "Jonathan  knows  nothing  of  this  for  certain, 
though  he  suspects  it,  and  by  George,  Webb  will  take  an 
Arehbishoprick,°  and  Jonathan  a  —  no,  damme  —  Jonathan 
5  will  take  an  Archbishoprick  from  James,  I  warrant  me, 
gladly  enough.  Your  Duke  hath  the  string  of  the  whole 
matter  in  his  hand,"  the  Secretary  went  on.  "We  have 
that  which  will  force  Marlborough  to  keep  his  distance, 
and  he  goes  out  of  London  in  a  fortnight.     Prior  hath  his 

10  business;  he  left  me  this  morning,  and  mark  me,  Harry, 
should  fate  carry  off  our  august,  our  beloved,  our  most  gouty 
and  plethorick  Queen,  and  Defender  of  the  Faith,  la  bonne 
cause  triomphera.  A  la  sante  de  la  bonne  cause. °  Every- 
thing good  comes  from  France.     Wine  comes  from  France, 

15  gn^e  us  another  bumper  to  the  bonne  cause."  We  drank  it 
together. 

"Will  the  'bonne  cause'  turn  Protestant?"  asked  Mr. 
Esmond. 

"No,  hang  it,"  says  the  other,  "he'll  defend  our  Faith  as  in 

20  duty  bound,  but  he'll  stick  by  his  own.  The  Hind  and  the 
Panther°  shall  run  in  the  same  car,  by  Jove.  Righteousness 
and  peace  shall  kiss  each  other° ;  and  we'll  have  Father 
Massillon  to  walk  down  the  aisle  of  St.  Paul's,  cheek  by  jowl° 
with  Dr.  Sacheverel.°     Give  us  more  wine,  here's  a  health 

25  to  the  'bonne  cause,'  kneeUng  —  damme,  let's  drink  it  kneel- 
ing." —  He  was  quite  flushed  and  wild  with  wine  as  he  was 
talking. 

"  And  suppose,'^  says  Esmond,  who  always  had  this  gloomy 
apprehension,  "the  'bonne  cause'  should  give  us  up  to  the 

30  French,  as  his  father  and  uncle  did  before  him." 

"Give  us  up  to  the  French!"  starts  up  Bolingbroke,  "is 
there  any  English  gentleman  that  fears  that?  You  who 
have  seen  Jilenheim  and  Ramillies,  afraid  of  the  French ! 
Your  ancestors  and  mine,  and  brave  old  Webb's  yonder,  have 

35  met  them  in  a  hundred  fields,  and  our  children  will  be  ready 
to  do  the  like.  Who's  he  that  wishes  for  more  men  from 
England?  My  cousin  Westmoreland?  give  us  up  to  the 
French,  pshaw !" 

"  His  uncle  did,°"  says  Mr.   Esmond. 


HENRY   ESMOND  403 

"And  what  happened  to  his  grandfather ?° "  broke  out 
St.  John,  fining  out  another  bumper.  "  Here's  to  the  greatest 
monarch  England  ever  saw,  here's  to  the  Enghshman  that 
made  a  kingdom  of  her.  Our  great  King  came  from  Hunt- 
ingdon,°  not  Hanover;  our  fathers  chdn't  look  for  a  Dutch-  5 
man°  to  rule  us.  —  Let  him  come  and  we'll  keep  him,  and 
we'll  show  him  Whitehall. °  If  he's  a  traitor  let  us  have  him 
here  to  deal  with  him ;  and  then  there  are  spirits  here  as  great 
as  any  that  have  gone  before.  There  are  men  here  that  can 
look  at  danger  in  the  face  and  not  be  frightened  at  it.  Traitor,  la 
treason !  what  names  are  these  to  scare  you  and  me  ?  Are 
all  Oliver's  men  dead,  or  his  glorious  name  forgotten  in  fifty 
years  ?  Are  there  no  men  equal  to  him,  think  you,  as  good, 
ay,  as  good  ?  God  save  the  King  !  and  if  the  monarchy  fails 
us,  God  save  the  British  Republick!"  15 

He  filled  another  great  bumper,  and  tossed  it  up  and 
drained  it  wildly,  just  as  the  noise  of  rapid  carriage-wheels 
approaching  was  stopped  at  our  door,  and  after  a  hurried 
knock  and  a  moment's  interval,  Mr.  Swift  came  into  the  hall, 
ran  upstairs  to  the  room  we  were  dining  in,  and  entered  20 
it  with  a  perturbed  face.  St.  John,  excited  with  drink,  was 
making  some  wild  quotation  out  of  Macbeth,  but  Swift  stopped 
him. 

"Drink  no  more,  my  lord,  for  God's  sake,"  says  he.  "I 
come  with  the  most  dreadful  news."  25 

"Is  the  Queen  dead?"  cries  out  Bolingbroke,  seizing  on  a 
water-glass. 

"  Xo,  Duke  Hamilton  is  dead,  he  was  murdered  an  hour  ago 
by  Mohun  and  Macartney" ;  they  had  a  quarrel  this  morning, 
they  gave  him  not  so  much  time  as  to  write  a  letter.  He  30 
went  for  a  couple  of  his  friends,  and  he  is  dead,  and  Mohun, 
too,  the  bloody  villain,  who  was  set  on  him.  They  fought  in 
Hyde  Park°  just  before  sunset,  the  Duke  killed  Mohun,  and 
Macartney  came  up  and  stabbed  him,  and  the  dog  is  fled. 
I  have  your  chariot  below,  send  to  every  part  of  the  country  35 
and  apprehend  that  villain;  come  to  the  Duke's  house  and 
see  if  an}^  Hfe  be  left  in  him." 

"0  Beatrix,  Beatrix,"  thought  Esmond,  "and  here  ends 
my  poor  girl's  ambition!" 


404  HENRY  ESMOND 

CHAPTER   VI 

POOR    BEATRIX 

There  had  been  no  need  to  urge  upon  Esmond  the  necessity 
of  a  separation  between  him  and  Beatrix  :  fate  had  done  that 
completely ;  and  I  "think  from  the  very  moment  poor  Beatrix 
had  accepted  the  Duke's  offer,  she  began  to  assume  the 
5  majestick  air  of  a  Duchess,  nay,  Queen  Elect,  and  to  carry 
herself  as  one  sacred  and  removed  from  us  common  people. 
Her  mother  and  kinsman  both  fell  into  her  ways,  the  latter 
scornfully  perhaps,  and  uttering  his  usual  gibes  at  her  vanity 
and  his  own.     There  was  a  certain  charm  about  this  girl 

10  of  which  neither  Colonel  Esmond  nor  his  fond  mistress  could 
forgo  the  fascination ;    in  spite  of  her  faults  and  her  pride 
and  wilfulness,  they  were  forced  to  love  her;    and,  indeed, 
might  be  set  down  as  the  two  chief  flatterers  of  the  brilliant  . 
creature's  court. 

15  Who,  in  the  course  of  his  life,°  hath  not  been  so  bewitched, 
and  worshipped  some  idol  or  another?  Years  after  this 
passion  hath  been  dead  and  buried,  along  with  a  thousand 
other  worldly  cares  and  ambitions,  he  who  felt  it  can  recall 
it  out  of  its  grave,  and  admire,  almost  as  fondly  as  he  did 

20  in  his  youth,  that  lovely  queenly  creature.  I  invoke  that 
beautiful  spirit  from  the  shades  and  love  her  still;  or  rather 
I  should  say  such  a  past  is  always  present  to  a  man;  such 
a  passion  once  felt  forms  a  part  of  his  whole  being,  and  cannot 
be  separated  from  it;    it  becomes  a  portion  of  the  man  of 

25  to-day,  just  as  any  great  faith  or  conviction,  the  discovery < 
of  poetry,  the  awakening  of  religion,  ever  afterwards  influence 
him;   just  as  the  wound  I  had  at  Blenh(>im,  and  of  which  I 
wear  the  scar,  hath  become  part  of  my  frame  and  influ(Miced 
my  whole  body,  nay  spirit,  subseciuently,  though  'twas  got  and 

30  healed  forty  y(>ars  ago.  Parting  and  forgetting  !  What  faithful 
heart  can  clo  these  ?  Our  great  thouglits,  our  great  affections, 
the  Trutlis  of  our  life,  never  leave  us.  Surely,  they  cannot 
separat<3  from  our  consciousness;  sliall  follow  it  whithersoever 
that  shall  go;  and  are  of  their  nature  divino  and  immortal. 


HENRY   ESMOND  405 

With  the  horrible  news  of  this  catastrophe,  which  was 
confirmed  by  the  weeping;  domesticks  at  the  Duke's  own 
door,  Esmond  rode  homewards  as  quick  as  his  lazy  coach 
would  carry  him,  devising  all  the  time  how  he  should  break 
the  intelligence  to  the  person  most  concerned  in  it;  and  if  5 
a  satire  upon  human  vanity  could  be  needed,  that  poor  soul 
afforded  it  in  the  altered  company  and  occupations  in  which 
Esmond  found  her.  For  days  before,  her  chariot  had  been 
rolling  the  street  from  mercer  to  toy-shop  —  from  goldsmith 
to  laceman  :  her  taste  was  perfect,  or  at  least  the  fond  bride-  10 
groom  had  thought  so,  and  had  given  entire  authority  over 
all  tradesmen  and  for  all  the  plate,  furniture,  and  equipages, 
with  which  his  Grace  the  Ambassador  wished  to  adorn  his 
splendid  mission.  She  must  have  her  picture  by  Kneller,  a 
duchess  not  being  complete  without  a  portrait,  and  a  noble  15 
one  he  made,  and  actually  sketched  in',  on  a  cushion,  a  coronet, 
which  she  was  about  to  wear.  She  vowed  she  would  wear 
it  at  King  James  the  Third 's°  coronation,  and  never  a  princess 
in  the  land  vrould  have  become  ermine°  better.  Esmond 
found  the  antechamber  crowded  with  milliners  and  toy-shop  20 
women,  obsequious  goldsmiths  with  jewels,  salvers,  and 
tankards;  and  .mercers'  men  with  hangings,  and  velvets,  and 
brocades.  My  Lady  Duchess  elect  was  giving  audience  to 
one  famous  silversmith  from  Exeter  Change,  °  who  brought 
with  him  a  great  chased  salver, °  of  which  he  was  pointing  out  25 
the  beauties  as  Colonel  Esmond  entered.  "Come,"  says  she, 
"cousin,  and  admire  the  taste  of  this  pretty  thing."  I  think 
Mars  and  Venus  were  lying  in  the  golden  bower,  that  one  gilt 
cupid  carried  off  the  war-god's  casque  —  another  his  sword 
-^  another  his  great  buckler,  upon  which  my  Lord  Duke  30 
Hamilton's  arms  with  ours  were  to  be  engraved  —  and  a 
fourth  was  kneeling  down  to  the  reclining  goddess  with  the 
Ducal  coronet  in  his  hands,  God  help  us.  The  next  time 
Mr.  Esmond  saw  that  piece  of  plate,  the  arms  were  changed, 
the  Ducal  coronet  had  been  replaced  by  a  Viscount's,  it  35 
formed  part  of  the  fortune  of  the  thrifty  goldsmith's  own 
daughter,  when  she  married  my  Lord  Viscount  Squanderfield° 
two  years  after. 

"Isn't  this  a  beautiful  piece?"  says  Beatrix,  examining  it. 


406  HENRY   ESMOND 

and  she  pointed  out  the  arch  graces  of  the  Cupids,  and  the 
fine  carving  of  the  languid  prostrate  Mars.  Esmond  sickened 
as  he  thought  of  the  warrior  dead  in  his  chamber,  his  servants 
and  children  weeping  around  him ;   and  of  this  smiling  crea- 

5  ture  attiring  herself,  as  it  were,  for  that  nuptial  death-bed. 
"Tis  a  pretty  piece  of  vanity,'^  says  he,  looking  gloomily  at 
the  beautiful  creature :  there  were  flambeaux  in  the  room 
lighting  up  the  brilliant  mistress  of  it.  She  lifted  up  the 
great  gold  salver  with  her  fair  arms. 

10      ''Vanity !''  says  she,  haughtily.     ''What  is  vanity  in  you, 

sir,  is  propriety  in  me.     You  ask  a  Jewish  price  for  it,  Mr. 

Graves;    but  have  it  I  will,  if  only  to  spite  Mr.  Esmond." 

"Oh,  Beatrix,  lay  it    down!"  says  Mr.  Esmond.      "He- 

rodias° !  you  know  not  what  you  carry  in  the  charger." 

15  She  dropped  it  with  a  clang;  the  eager  goldsmith  running 
to  seize  his  fallen  ware.  The  lady's  face  caught  the  fright 
from  Esmond's  pale  countenance,  and  her  ej^es  shone  out  like 
beacons  of  alarm  :  —  "What  is  it,  Henry?"  says  she,  running 
to  him,  and  seizing  both  his  hands.     "What  do  you  mean 

20  by  your  pale  face  and  gloomy  tones?" 

"Come  away,  come  away,"  says  Esmond,  leading  her:  she 
clung  frightened  to  him,  ancl  he  supported  her  upon  his  heart, 
bidding  the  scared  goldsmith  leave  them.  The  man  went 
into  the  next  apartment,  staring  with  surprise,  and  hugging 

25  his  precious  charger. 

"O  my  Beatrix,  my  sister,"  says  Esmond,  still  holding 
in  his  arms  the  pallid  and  affrighted  creature,  "you  have  the 
greatest  courage  of  any  woman  in  the  world ;  prepare  to 
show  it  now,  for  you  have  a  dreadful  trial  to  bear." 

30  She  sprang  away  from  the  friend  who  would  have  pro- 
tected her:  —  "Hath  he  left  me?"  says  she.  "We  had 
words  this  morning :  he  was  very  gloomy,  and  I  angered  him  : 
but  he  dared  not,  he  dared  not!"  As  she  spoke  a  burning 
blush  flushefl  over  her  whole  face  and  bosom.     Esmond  saw 

35  it  reflected  in  the  glass  by  which  she  stood,  with  clenched 
hands,   pressing  her  swelling  heart. 

"He  has  left  you,"  says  ]^]smond,  wondering  that  rage 
rather  than  sorrow  was  in  her  looks. 

"And  he  is  alive!"  cries  Beatrix,  "and  you  bring  me  this 


HENRY    ESMOND  407 

commission !  He  has  left  me,  and  you  haven't  dared  to 
avenge  me  !  You,  that  pretend  to  be  the  champion  of  our 
house,  have  let  me  suffer  this  insult !  Where  is  Castlewood  ? 
I  will  go  to  my  brother.'' 

"The  Duke  is  not  aUve,   Beatrix,"  .said  Esmond.  5 

She  looked  at  her  cousin  wildly,  and  fell  back  to  the  wall  as 
though  shot  in  the  breast:  —  "And  you  come  here,  and  — 
and  —  you  killed  him  ?  " 

"Xo,  thank  Heaven, °"  her  kinsman  said,  "the  blood  of 
that  noble  heart  doth  not  stain  my  sword.     In  its  last  hour  10 
it  was  faithful  to  thee,  Beatrix  Esmond.     Vain  and  cruel 
woman !    kneel  and  thank  the  Awful  Heaven  which  awards 
life  and  death,  and  chastises  pride,  that  the  noble  Hamilton 
died  true  to  you;    at  least  that  'twas  not  your  quarrel,  or 
your  pride,  or  3^our  wicked  vanity,  that  drove  him  to  his  15 
fate.     He  died  by  the  bloody  sword  which  already  had  drank 
your  own  father's  blood.     O  woman,  O  sister !    to  that  sad 
field  where  two  corpses  are  lying  —  for  the  murderer  died  too 
by  the  hand  of  the. man  he  slew  —  can  you  bring  no  mourners 
but  your  revenge  and  your  vanity?     God  help  and  pardon  20 
thee,  Beatrix,  as  he  brings  this  awful  punishment  to  your  hard 
and  rebellious  heart." 

Esmond  had  scarce  done  speaking,  w^hen  his  mistress  came 
in.  The  colloquy  between  him  and  Beatrix  had  lasted  but 
a  few  minutes,  during  which  time  Esmond's  servant  had  25 
carried  the  disastrous  news  through  the  household.  The 
army  of  Vanity-Fair,  waiting  without,  gathered  up  their 
fripperies  and  fled  aghast.  Tender  Lady  Castlewood  had 
been  in  talk  above  with  Dean  Atterbury,  the  pious  creature's 
almoner  and  director;  and  the  Dean  had  entered  with  her  30 
as  a  physician  whose  place  was  at  a  sick-bed,  Beatrix's 
mother  looked  at  Esmond  and  ran  towards  her  daughter 
with  a  pale  face  and  open  heart  and  hands,  all  kindness  and 
pity.  But  Beatrix  passed  her  by,  nor  would  she  have  an}^  of 
the  medicaments  of  the  spiritual  physician.  "I  am  best  in  35 
my  own  room  and  by  myself,"  she  said.  Her  eyes  were 
quite  dry;  nor  did  Esmond  ever  see  them  otherwise,  save 
once,  in  respect  to  that  grief.  She  gave  him  a  cold  hand 
as  she  went  out:    "Thank  you,  brother,"  she  said,  in  a  low 


408  HENRY   ESMOND 

voice,  and  with  a  simplicity  more  touching  than  tears,  "al\ 
you  have  said  is  true  and  kind,  and  I  will  go  away  and  ask 
pardon."  The  three  others  remained  behind,  and  talked 
over  the  dreadful  story.  It  affected  Dr.  Atterbury  more  even 
5  than  us,  as  it  seemed.  The  death  of  Mohun,  her  husband's 
murderer,  was  more  awful  to  my  mistress  than  even  the 
Duke's  unhappy  end.  Esmond  gave  at  length  what  partic- 
ulars he  knew  of  their  quarrel,  and  the  cause  of  it.  The  two 
noblemen  had  long  been  at  war  with  respect  to  the  Lord 

lo  Gerard's  property,  whose  tAvo  daughters,  my  Lord  Duke 
and  Mohun  had  married. °  They  had  met  by  appointment 
that  day  at  the  lawyer's  in  Lincoln's  Inn  Fields ;  had  words, 
which  though  they  appeared  very  trifling  to  those  who  heard 
them,  were  not  so  to  men  exasperated  by  long  and  previous 

15  enmity.  Mohun  asked  my  Lord  Duke  where  he  could  see 
his  Grace's  friends,  and  within  an  hour  had  sent  two  of  his 
own  to  arrange  this  deadly  duel.  It  was  pursued  with  such 
fierceness,  and  sprung  from  so  trifling  a  cause,  that  all  men 
agreed  at  the  time  that  there  was  a  party  of  which  these 

20  three  notorious  brawlers  were  but  agents,  who  desired  to  take 
Duke  Hamilton's  life  away.  They  fought  three  on  a  side, 
as  in  that  tragick  meeting  twelve  years  back,  which  hath 
been  recounted  already,  and  in  which  Mohun  performed  his 
second  murder.     They  rushed  in,  and  closed  upon  each  other 

25  at  once  without  any  feints  or  crossing  of  swords  even,  and 
stabbed  one  at  the  other  desperately,  each  receiving  many 
wounds ;  and  Mohun  having  his  death  wound,  and  my  Lord 
Duke  lying  by  him.  Macartney  came  up  and  stabbed  his 
CJi-ace  as  he  lay  on  the  ground,  and  gave  him  the  blow  of 

30  which  he  died.  Colonel  Macartney  denied  this,  of  which  the 
horror  and  indignation  of  the  whole  kingdom  would  never- 
theless have  him  guilty,  and  fled  the  country  whither  he 
never  returned. 

What  was  the  real  cause  of  the  Duke  Hamilton's  death,  — 

35  M  i)altry  quarrel  that  might  easily  have  been  made  up,  and 
with  a  ruffian  so  low,  base,  profligate,  and  degraded  with 
former  crimes  and  repeated  murders,  that  a  man  of  such  a 
renown  and  princely  rank  as  my  Lord  J)uk(^  might  have  dis- 
dained to  sully  his  sword  with  the  blood  of  such  a  villain? 


HENRY   ESMOND  409 

But  his  spirit  was  so  high  that  those  who  wished  his  death 
knew  that  his  courage  was  Hke  his  charity,  and  never  turned 
any  man  away ;  and  he  died  by  the  hands  of  Mohun  and  the 
other  two  cut-throats  that  were  set  on  him.  The  Queen's 
ambassador  to  Paris  died,  the  loyal  and  devoted  servant  of  5 
the  House  of  Stuart,  a  Royal  Prince  of  Scotland  himself,  and 
carrying  the  confidence,  the  repentance  of  Queen  Anne  along 
with  his  own  open  devotion,  and  the  good-will  of  millions 
in  the  country  more,  to  the  Queen's  exiled  brother  and 
sovereign.  10 

That  party  to  which  Lord  Mohun  belonged  had  the  benefit 
of  his  service,  and  nov/  were  well  rid  of  such  a  ruffian.  He, 
and  Meredith,  and  Macartne}^  were  the  Duke  of  Marlbor- 
ough's men ;  and  the  two  colonels  had  been  broke  but  the 
year  before  for  drinking  perdition  to  the  Tories.  His  Grace  15 
was  a  Whig  now  and  a  Hanoverian,  and  as  eager  for  war  as 
Prince  Eugene  himself.  I  say  not  that  he  was  privy  to 
Duke  Hamilton's  death,  I  say  that  his  party  profited  b}'  it ; 
and  that  three  desperate  and  bloody  instruments  were  found 
to  effect  that  murder.  20 

As  Esmond  and  the  Dean  walked  away  from  Kensington 
discoursing  of  this  tragedy,  and  how  fatal  it  was  to  the  cause 
which  they  both  had  at  heart ;  the  street-criers  were  already 
out  with  their  broadsides,  shouting  through  the  town  the  full, 
true,  and  horrible  account  of  the  death  of  Lord  Mohun  and  25 
Duke  Hamilton  in  a  duel.  A  fellow  had  got  to  Kensington, 
and  was  crying  it  in  the  square  there  at  very  early  morning, 
when  Mr.  Esmond  happened  to  pass  by.  He  drove  the  man 
from  under  Beatrix's  very  window,  whereof  the  casement 
had  been  set  open.  The  sun  was  shining  though  'twas  Xo-  30 
vember :  he  had  seen  the  market-carts  rolling  into  London, 
the  guard  relieved  at  the  palace,  the  labourers  trudging  to 
their  work  in  the  gardens  between  Kensington  and  the  City 
—  the  wandering  merchants  and  hawkers  filling  the  air  with 
their  cries.  The  world  was  going  to  its  business  again,  al-  35 
though  dukes  lay  dead  and  ladies  mourned  for  them;  and 
kings,  very  likely,  lost  their  chances.  So  night  and  day  pass 
away,  and  to-morrow  comes,  and  our  place  knows  us  not. 
Esmond  thought  of  the  courier,  now  galloping  on  the  north 


410  HENRY   ESMOND 

road  to  inform  him,  who  was  Earl  of  Arran  yesterday,  that 
he  was  Duke  of  Hamilton  to-day,  and  of  a  thousand  great 
schemes,  hopes,  ambitions,  that  were  alive  in  the  gallant 
heart,  beating  a  few  hours  since,  and  now  in  a  little  dust 
5  quiescent. 

CHAPTER  VII 

I    VISIT   CASTLEWOOD    ONCE     MORE 

Thus,  for  a  third  time,  Beatrix's  ambitious  hopes  were 
circumvented,  and  she  might  well  believe  that  a  special 
malignant  fate  watched  and  pursued  her,  tearing  her  prize 
out  of  her  hand  just  as  she  seemed  to  grasp  it,  and  leaving 

10  her  with  only  rage  and  grief  for  her  portion.  Whatever 
her  feelings  might  have  been  of  anger  or  of  sorrow  (and  I  fear 
me  that  the  former  emotion  was  that  which  most  tore 
her  heart),  she  would  take  no  confidant,  as  people  of  softer 
natures  would  have  done  under  such  a  calamity ;  her  mother 

15  and  her  kinsman  knew  that  she  would  disdain  their  pity,  and 
that  to  offer  it  would  be  but  to  infuriate  the  cruel  wound 
which  fortune  had  inflicted.  We  knew  that  her  pride  was 
awfully  humbled  and  punished  by  this  sudden  and  terrible 
blow;   she  wanted  no  teaching  of  ours  to  point  out  the  sad 

20  moral  of  her  story.  Her  fond  mother  could  give  but  her 
prayers,  and  her  kinsman  his  faithful  friendship  and  patience 
to  the  unhappy  stricken  creature;  and  it  was  only  by  hints, 
and  a  word  or  two  uttered  months  afterwards,  that  Beatrix 
showed  she  understood  their  silent  commiseration,  and  on 

25  her  part  was  secretly  thankful  for  their  forbearance.  The 
people  about  the  Court  said  there  was  that  in  her  manner 
which  frightened  away  scoffing  and  condolence :  she  was 
above  their  triumph  and  their  pity,  and  acted  her  part  in 
that  dreadful   tragedy  greatly  and   courag(H)U8ly ;    so   that 

30  those  who  liked  her  h^ast  were  yet  forced  to  admire  her.  We, 
who  watched  her  after  her  disaster,  could  not  but  respect  the 
indomitable  courage  and  majestick  calm  with  which  she  bore 
it.  "  I  would  rather  see  her  tears  than  her  i>ride,"  her  mother 
said,  who  was  accustomed  to  bear  her  sorrows  in  a  very 


HENRY   ESMOND  411 

different  way,  and  to  receive  them  as  the  stroke  of  God, 
with  an  awful  submission  and  meekness.  But  Beatrix's 
nature  was  different  to  that  tender  parent's;  she  seemed  to 
accept  her  grief,  and  to  defy  it ;  nor  would  she  allow  it  (I 
believe  not  even  in  private,  and  in  her  own  chamber)  to  5 
extort  from  her  the  confession  of  even  a  tear  of  humiliation 
or  a  cry  of  pain.  Friends  and  children  of  our  race,  who  come 
after  me,  in  which  way  will  you  bear  your  trials?  I  know 
one  that  prays  God  will  give  you  love  rather  than  pride,  and 
that  the  Eye-all-seeing  shall  find  you  in  the  humble  place,  n 
Not  that  we  should  judge  proud  spirits  otherwise  than  chari- 
tably. 'Tis  nature  hath  fashioned  some  for  ambition  and 
dominion,  as  it  hath  formed  others  for  obedience  and  gentle 
submission.  The  leopard  follows  his  nature  as  the  lamb 
does,  and  acts  after  leopard-law  ;  she  can  neither  help  her  15 
beauty,  nor  her  courage,  nor  her  cruelty;  nor  a  single  spot 
on  her  shining  coat ;  nor  the  conquering  spirit  which  impels 
her,  nor  the  shot  which  brings  her  down. 

During  that  well-founded  panick  the  Whigs  had,°  lest  the 
Queen  should  forsake  their  Hanoverian   Prince,   bound  by  20 
oaths  and  treaties  as  she  was  to  him,  and  recall  her  brother, 
who  was  allied  to  her  by  yet  stronger  ties  of    nature  and 
duty;   the  Prince  of  Savoy,  and  the  boldest  of  that  party  of 
the  Whigs,  were  for  bringing  the  young  Duke  of  Cambridge^ 
oyer,  in  spite  of  the  Queen  and  the  outcrv  of  her  Tory  servants,  25 
arguing  that  the  Electoral  Prince,  a  Peer  and  Prince  of  the 
Blood  Royal  of  this  Realm  too,  and  in  the  line  of  succession 
to  the  crown,  had  a  right  to  sit  in  the  Parliament  whereof  he 
was  a  member,  and  to  dwell  in  the  country  which  he  one  day 
was  to  govern.     Nothing  but  the  strongest  ill-will  expressed  30 
by  the  Queen,  and  the  people  about  her,  and  menaces  of 
the  Royal  resentment,  should  this  scheme  be  persisted  in, 
prevented  it  from  being  carried  into  effect. 

The  boldest  on  our  side  were,  in  like  manner,  for  having 
our  Prince  into  the  country.     The  undoubted  inheritor  of  35 
the  right  divine ;    the  feelings  of  more  than  half  the  nation, 
of  almost  all  the  clergy,  of  the  gentry  of  England  and  Scotland 
with  him ;  entirely  innocent  of  the  crime  for  which  his  father 


412  HENRY   ESMOND 

suffered  —  brave,  young,  handsome,  unfortunate  —  who  in 
England  would  dare  to  molest  the  Prince  should  he  come 
among  us,  and  fling  himself  upon  British  generosity,  hos- 
pitality and  honour?  An  invader  with  an  army  of  French- 
5  men  behind  him.  Englishmen  of  spirit  would  resist  to  the 
death,  and  drive  back  to  the  shores  whence  he  (;ame ;  but 
a  Prince,  alone,  armed  with  his  right  only,  and  relying  on  the 
loyalty  of  his  people,  was  sure,  many  of  his  people  argued,  of 
welcome,  at  least   of   safety,  among  us.     The  hand   of   his 

10  sister  the  Queen,  of  the  people  his  subjects,  never  could  be 
raised  to  do  him  a  wrong.  But  the  Queen  was  timid  by 
nature,  and  the  successive  ministers  she  had,  had  private 
causes^  for  their  irresolution.  The  bolder  and  honester  men, 
who  had  at  heart  the  illustrious  young  exile's  cause,  had  no 

15  scheme  of  interest  of  their  own  to  prevent  them  from  seeing 
the  right  done,  and,  provided  only  he  came  as  an  English- 
man, were  ready  to  venture  their  all  to  welcome  and  defend 
him. 

St.  John  and  Harley  both  had  kind  words  in  plenty  for  the 

20  Prince's  adherents,  and  gave  him  endless  promises  of  future 
support :  but  hints  and  promises  were  all  they  could  be  got 
to  give;  and  some  of  his  friends  were  for  measures  much 
bolder,  more  efficacious,  and  more  open.  With  a  party  of 
these,  some  of  whom  are  yet  alive,  and  some  whose  names 

25  Mr.  Esmond  has  no  right  to  mention,  he  found  himself  en- 
gaged the  year  after  that  miserable  death  of  Duke  Hamilton, 
which  deprived  the  Prince  of  his  most  courageous  ally  in  this 
country.  Dean  Atterbury  was  one  of  the  friends  whom 
Esmond  may  mention,  as  the  brave  bishop  is  now  beyond 

30  exile  and  persecution,  and  to  him,  and  one  or  two  more,  the 
Colonel  opened  himself  of  a  schcmie  of  his  own,°  that,  backed 
by  a  little  resolution  on  the  Prince's  part,  could  not  fail 
of  bringing  about  the  accomplishment  of  their  dearest 
wishes. 

35  ^^y  y<'>'^"i[?  Lord  Viscount  Castlewood  had  not  come  to 
Englaud  to  keep  his  majority,  and  had  now  been  absent  from 
the  country  for  several  years.  The  year  when  his  sister  was 
to  b(;  married  and  Duke  Hamilton  died,  my  lord  was  kept 
at  Bruxclles  by  his  wife's  lying-in.     The  gentle  Clotilda  could 


/ 


HENRY   ESMOND  413 


not  bear  her  husband  out  of  her  sight ;  perhaps  she  mis- 
trusted the  young  scrapegrace  should  he  ever  get  loose  from 
her  leading-strings ;  and  she  kept  him  by  her  side  to  nurse  the 
baby  and  administer  posset  to  the  gossips.  Many  a  laugh 
poor  Beatrix  had  had  about  Frank's  uxoriousness  :  his  mother  5 
would  have  gone  to  Clotilda  when  her  time  was  coming,  but 
that  the  mother-in-law  was  already  in  possession,  and  the 
negotiations  for  poor  Beatrix's  marriage  were  begun.  A  few 
months  after  the  horrid  catastrophe  in  Hyde  Park,  my  mis- 
tress and  her  daughter  retired  to  Castlewood,  where  my  lord,  la 
it  was  expected,  would  soon  join  them.  But  to  say  truth, 
their  quiet  household  was  little  to  his  taste :  he  could  be  got 
to  come  to  Walcote  but  once  after  his  first  campaign ;  and 
then  the  young  rogue  spent  more  than  half  his  time  in  London, 
not  appearing  at  Court  or  in  publick  under  his  own  name  and  15 
title,  but  frequenting  plays,  bagnios,  and  the  very  worst  com- 
pany, under  the  name  of  Captain  Esmond  (whereby  his  in- 
nocent kinsman  got  more  than  once  into  trouble) ;  and  so 
under  various  pretexts,  and  in  pursuit  of  all  sorts  of  pleasures, 
until  he  plunged  into  the  lawful  one  of  marriage,  Frank  20 
Castlewood  had  remained  away  from  this  country,  and  was 
unknown,  save  amongst  the  gentlemen  of  the  army,  with 
whom  he  had  served  abroad.  The  fond  heart  of  his  mother 
was  pained  by  this  long  absence.  Twas  all  that  Henry 
Esmond  could  do  to  soothe  her  natural  mortification,  and  25 
find  excuses  for  his  kinsman's  levity. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  year  1713,  Lord  Castlewood  thought 
of  returning  home.  His  first  child  had  been  a  daughter; 
Clotilda  was  in  the  way  of  gratifying  his  lordship  with  a 
second,  and  the  pious  youth  thought  that  l^y  bringing  his  30 
wife  to  his  ancestral  home,  by  prayers  to  St.  Philip  of  Castle- 
wood, °  and  what  not,  Heaven  might  be  induced  to  bless  him 
with  a  son  this  time,  for  whose  coming  the  expectant  mamma 
was  very  anxious. 

The  long-debated  peace°  had  been  proclaimed  this  year  at  35 
the  end  of  March;    and  France  was  open  to  us.     Just  as 
Frank's  poor  mother  had  made  all  things  ready  for  Lord 
Castlewood 's  reception,  and  was  eagerly  expecting  her  son, 
"t  was  by  Colonel  Esmond's  means  that  the  kind  lady  was 


414  HENRY   ESMOND 

disappointed  of  her  longing,  and  obliged  to  defer  once  more, 
the  darling  hope  of  her  heart. 

Esmond  took  horses  to  Castle  wood.  He  had  not  seen  its 
antient  grey  towers  and  well-remembered  woods  for  nearly 
5  fourteen  years,  and  since  he  rode  thence  with  my  lord,  to 
whom  his  mistress  with  her  young  children  by  her  side  waved 
an  adieu.  What  ages  seemed  to  have  passed  since  then, 
what  years  of  action  and  passion,  of  care,  love,  hope,  dis- 
aster !     The  children  were  grown  up  now  and  had  stories 

10  of  their  own.  As  for  Esmond,  he  felt  to  be  a  hundred  years 
old;  his  dear  mistress  only  seemed  unchanged;  she  looked 
and  welcomed  him  quite  as  of  old.  There  was  the  fountain 
in  the  court  babbling  its  familiar  musick,  the  old  hall  and  its 
furniture,  the  carved  chair  my  late  lord  used,  the  very  flagon 

15  he  drank  from.  Esmond's  mistress  knew  he  would  like  to 
sleep  in  the  little  room  he  used  to  occupy ;  'twas  made  ready 
for  him,  and  wall-flowers  and  sweet  herbs  set  in  the  adjoining 
chamber,  the  chaplain's  room. 

In  tears  of  not  unmanly  emotion,  with  prayers  of  submis- 

20  sion  to  the  awful  Dispenser  of  death  and  life,  of  good  and  evil 
fortune,  Mr.  Esmond  passed  a  part  of  that  first  night  at 
Castlewood,  lying  awake  for  many  hours  as  the  clock  kept 
tolling®  (in  tones  so  well  remembered),  looking  back,  as  all 
men  will,  that  revisit  their  home  of  childhood,  over  the  great 

25  gulf  of  time,  and  surveying  himself  on  the  distant  bank  yon- 
der; a  sad  little  melancholy  boy,  with  his  lord  still  alive,  — 
his  dear  mistress,  a  girl  yet,  her  children  sporting  around  her. 
Years  ago,  a  boy  on  that  very  bed,  when  she  had  blessed  him 
and  called  him  her  knight,  he  had  made  a  vow  to  be  faithful 

30  and  never  desert  her  dear  service.  Had  he  kept  that  fond 
boyish  promise  ?  Yes,  before  Heaven  ;  yes,  praise  be  to  God  ! 
His  life  had  been  hers;  his  blood,  his  fortune,  his  name,  his 
whole  heart  ever  since  had  been  hers  and  her  children's.  All 
night  long  he   was  dreaming  his  boyhood  over  again,   and 

35  waking  fitfully ;  he  half  fancied  he  heard  Father  Holt  calling 
to  him  from  the  next  chamber,  and  that  he  was  coming  in 
and  out  from  the  mysterious  window. 

Esmond  rose  up  before  the  dawn,  passed  into  the  next 
room,  where  the  air  was  heavy  with  the  odour  of  the  wall- 


/ 


HENRY    ESMOND  415 


flowers;  looked  into  the  brazier  where  the  papers  had  been 
l)urnt,  into  the  old  presses  where  Holt's  books  and  papers 
had  been  kept,  and  tried  the  spring,  and  whether  the  window 
worked  still.  The  spring  had  not  been  touched  for  years,  but 
yielded  at  length,  and  the  whole  fabrick  of  the  window  sank  5 
down.  He  hfted  it  and  it  relapsed  into  its  frame;  no  one 
had  ever  passed  thence  since  Holt  used  it  sixteen  years  ago. 

Esmond  remembered  his  poor  lord  saying,  on  the  last  day 
of  his  life,  that  Holt  used  to  come  in  and  out  of  the  house  like 
a  ghost,  and  knew  that  the  Father  liked  these  mysteries,  and  10 
practised  such  secret  disguises,  entrances,  and  exits :  this 
was  the  way  the  ghost  came  and  went  his  pupil  had  always 
conjectured.  Esmond  closed  the  casement  up  again  as  the 
dawn  was  rising  over  Castle  wood  village ;  he  could  hear  the 
clinking  at  the  blacksmith's  forge  yonder  among  the  trees,  15 
a-cross  the  green,  and  past  the  river,  on  which  a  mist  still  lay 
sleeping. 

Next  Esmond  opened  that  long  cupboard  over  the  wood- 
work of  the  mantelpiece,  big  enough  to  hold  a  man,  and  in 
which  Mr.  Holt  used  to  keep  sundry  secret  properties  of  his.  20 
The  two  swords  he  remembered  so  well,  as  a  boy,  lay  actually 
there  still,  and  Esmond  took  them  out  and  wiped  them,  with 
a  strange  curiosity  of  emotion.  There  were  a  bundle  of 
papers' here,  too,  which  no  doubt  had  been  left  at  Holt's  last 
\dsit  to  the  place,  in  ray  Lord  Viscount's  life,  that  very  day  25 
w^hen  the  priest  had  been  arrested  and  taken  to  Hexham 
Castle.  Esmond  made  free  with  these  papers,  and  found 
treasonable  matter  of  King  WiUiam's  reign,  the  names  of  Char- 
nock°and  Perkins,°Sir  John  Fenwick°  and  Sir  John  Friend, ° 
Rookwood°  and  Lodwick,°  Lords  Montgomery °  and  Ailes-  3c 
bury,°  Clarendon,"  and  Yarmouth, °  that  had  all  been  engaged 
in  plots  against  the  usurper :  a  letter  from  the  Duke  of  Ber- 
wick too,  and  one  from  the  King  at  St.  Germains,  offering  to 
confer  upon  his  trusty  and  well-beloved  Francis,  Viscount 
Castlewood,  the  titles  of  Earl  and  Marquis  of  Esmond,  be-  35 
stowed  by  patent  royal,  and  in  the  fourth  year  of  his  reign, 
upon  Thomas,  Viscount  Castlewood,  and  the  heirs  male  of  his 
body,  in  default  of  wliich  issue,  the  ranks  and  dignities  were 
to  pass  to  Francis  aforesaid. 


416  HENRY   ESMOND 

This  was  the  paper,  whereof  my  lord  had  spoken,  which 
Holt  showed  him  the  very  day  he  was  arrested,  and  for  an 
answer  to  which  he  would  come  back  in  a  week's  time.  I 
put  these  papers  hastily  into  the  crypt,  whence  I  had  taken 
5  them,  being  interrupted  by  a  tapping  of  a  light  finger  at  the 
ring  of  the  chamber-door :  'twas  my  kind  mistress,  with  her 
face  full  of  love  and  welcome.  She,  too,  had  passed  the  night 
wakefully,  no  doubt ;  but  neither  asked  the  other  how  the 
hours  had  been  spent.     There  are  things  we  divine  Avithout 

lo  speaking,  and  know  though  they  happen  out  of  our  sight. 
This  fond  lady  hath  told  me  that  she  knew  both  days  when 
I  was  wounded  abroad.  Who  shall  say  how  far  sympathy 
reaches,  and  how  truly  love  can  prophesy  ?  '  I  looked  into 
your  room,'  was  all  she  said;  'the  bed  was  vacant,  the  Httle 

15  old  bed !  I  knew  I  should  find  you  here.'  And  tender  and 
blushing  faintly  with  a  benediction  in  her  eyes,  the  gentle 
creature  kissed  him. 

They  walked  out,  hand-in-hand  through  the  old  court,  and 
to  the  terrace-walk,  where  the  grass  was  glistening  with  dew, 

20  and  the  birds  in  the  green  woods  above  were  singing  their 
delicious  choruses  under  the  blushing  morning  skj^  How 
well  all  things  were  remembered !  The  antient  towers  and 
gables  of  the  hall  darkling  against  the  east,  the  purple 
shadows  on  the  green  slopes,  the  quaint  devices  and  carvings 

25  of  the  dial,  the  forest-crowned  heights,  the  fair  yellow  plain 
cheerful  with  crops  and  corn,  the  shining  river  rolling  through 
it  towards  the  pearly  hills  beyond ;  all  these  were  before 
us,  along  with  a  thousand  beautiful  memories  of  our  youth, 
beautiful  and  sad,  but  as  real  and  vivid  in  our  minds  as  that 

30  fair  and  always-remembered  scene  our  eyes  beheld  once  more. 
We  forget  nothing.  The  memory  sleeps,  but  wakens  again ; 
I  often  think  how  it  shall  be,  when,  after  the  last  sleep  of 
death,  the  reveillee  shall  arouse  us  for  ever,  and  the  past  in 
one    flash    of   self-consciousness    rush    back,    like    the    soul, 

35  revivified. 

The  house  would  not  be  up  for  some  hours  yet  (it  was 
/uly,  and  the  dawn  was  only  just  awake),  and  here  Esmond 
opeiuid  himself  to  his  mistress,  of  the  business  he  had  in 
hand,  and  what  part  Frank  was  to  play  in  it.     He  knew  he 


/ 


HENRY   ESMOND  417 


could  confide  anything  to  her,  and  that  the  fond  soul  would 
die  rather  than  reveal  it ;  and  bidding  her  keep  the  secret 
from  all,  he  laid  it  entirely  before  his  mistress  (always  as 
staunch  a  Httle  loyalist  as  any  in  the  kingdom),  and  indeed 
was  quite  sure  that  any  plan  of  his  was  secure  of  her  applause  5 
and  S3^mpathy.  Never  was  such  a  glorious  scheme  to  her 
partial  mind,  never  such  a  devoted  knight  to  execute  it. 
An  hour  or  two  may  have  passed  whilst  they  were  halving 
their  colloquy.  Beatrix  came  out  to  them  just  as  their 
talk  was  over;  her  tall  beautiful  form  robed  in  sable°  (which  ic 
she  wore  without  ostentation  ever  since  last  year's  catas- 
trophe) sweeping  over  the  green  terrace,  and  casting  its 
shadows  before  her  across  the  grass. 

She  made  us  one  of  her  grand  curtsies  smiling,  and  called 
us  "the  young  people."  She  was  older,  paler,  and  more  15 
majestick  than  in  the  year  before;  her  mother  seemed  the 
youngest  of  the  two.  She  never  once  spoke  of  her  grief, 
Lady  Castlewood  told  Esmond,  or  alluded,  save  by  a  quiet 
word  or  two,  to  the  death  of  her  hopes. 

When  Beatrix  came  back  to  Castlewood  she  took  to  visiting  20 
all  the  cottages  and  all  the  sick.     She  set  up  a  school  of 
children,  and  taught  singing  to  some  of  them.     We  had  a 
pair  of  beautiful  old  organs  in  Castlewood  Church,  on  which 
she  played  admirabh^,  so  that  the  musick  there  became  to 
be  known  in  the  country  for  many  miles  round,  and  no  doubt  25 
people  came  to  see  the  fair  organist  as  well  as  to  hear  her.   Par- 
son Tusher  and  his  \\iiQ  were  established  at  the  ^dcarage,  but 
his  wife  had  brought  him  no  children  wdierewith  Tom  might 
meet  his  enemies  at  the  gate.     Honest  Tom  took  care  not  to 
have  many  such,  his  great   shovel-hat°  was  in  his  hand  for  3° 
everybody.     He  was  profuse  of  bows  and  compliments.     He 
behaved  to  Esmond  as  if  the  Colonel  had  been  a  Commander- 
in-Chief ;   he  dined  at  the  hall  that  day,  being  Sunday,  and 
would  not  partake  of  pudding°  except  under  extreme  press- 
ure.    He    deplored    my  lord's    perversion, °    but  drank    his  35 
lordship's   health   very   devoutly;    and   an   hour   before   at 
church  sent  the  Colonel  to  sleep,  with  a  long,  learned,  and 
refreshing   sermon. 

Esmond's  visit  home  was  but  for  two  days ;  the  business  he 


418  HENRY   ESMOND 

had  in  hand  calUng  him  away  and  out  of  the  country.  Ere 
he  went,  he  saw  Beatrix  but  once  alone,  and  then  she  sum- 
moned him  out  of  the  long  tapestry  room,  where  he  and  his 
mistress  were  sitting,  quite  as  in  old  times,  into  the  adjoining 
5  chamber,  that  had  been  Viscountess  Isabel's  sleeping  apart- 
ment, and  where  Esmond  perfectly  well  remembered  seeing 
the  old  lady  sitting  up  in  the  bed,  in  her  night-rail,  that 
morning  when  the  troop  of  guard  came  to  fetch  her.  The 
most  beautiful  woman  in  England  lay  in  that  bed  now, 
lo  whereof  the  great  damask  hangings  were  scarce  faded  since 
Esmond  saw  them  last. 

Here  stood  Beatrix  in  her  black  robes,  holding  a  box  in 

her  hand;    'twas  that  which  Esmond  had  given  her  before 

her  marriage,  stamped  with  a  coronet  which  the  disappointed 

15  girl  was  never  to  wear;    and  containing  his  aunt's  legacy 

of  diamonds. 

"You  had  best  take  these  with  you,  Harry,"  says  she: 
"I  have  no  need  of  diamonds  any  more."  There  was  not 
the  least  token  of  emotion  in  her  quiet  low  voice.  She  held 
20  out  the  black  shagreen°  case  with  her  fair  arm,  that  did  not 
shake  in  the  least.  Esmond  saw  she  wore  a  black  velvet 
bracelet  on  it,  with  my  Lord  Duke's  picture  in  enamel;  he 
had  given  it  her  but  three  days  before  he  fell. 

Esmond  said  the  stones  were  his  no  longer,  and  strove  to 

25  turn  off  that  proffered  restoration  with  a  laugh:    "Of  what 

good,"  says  he,   "are  they  to  me?     The  diamond  loop  tc 

his  hat  did  not  set  off  Prince  Eugene,  and  will  not  mako 

my  yellow  face  look  any  handsomer." 

"You  will  give  them  to  your  wife,  cousin,"  says  she. 
30  "My  cousin,  your  wife  has  a  lovely  complexion  rnd  shape." 

"  l^eatrix,"  Esmond  burst  out,  the  old  fire  flaming  out  as  it 
would  at  times,  "will  you  wear  those  trinkets  at  your  mar- 
riage ?  You  whispered  once  you  did  not  know  me  :  you  know 
me  better  now :  how  I  fought,  what  I  have  sighed  for,  for 
35  ten  years,  what  forgone." 

"A  price  for  your  constancy,  my  lord!"  says  she;  "such 
a  preux  chcvalier°  wants  to  be  paid!     Oh,. fie!   cousin." 

"Again,"  Esmond  spoke  out,  "if  I  do  something  you  have 
at  heart;  something  worthy  of  me  and  you;  something  that 


/  HENRY  ESMOND  419 

shall  make  me  a  name  with  which  to  endow  you ;  will  you 
take  it  ?  There  was  a  chance  for  me  once,  you  said,  is  it 
impossible  to  recall  it  ?  Never  shake  your  head,  but  hear  me  : 
say  you  will  hear  me  a  year  hence.  If  I  come  back  to  you 
and  bring  you  fame,  will  that  please  you?  If  I  do  what  5 
you  desire  most  —  what  he  who  is  dead  desired  most,  — 
will  that  soften  you?" 

''What  is   it,  Henry,"  says   she,    her   face    lighting    up; 
"what  mean  you?" 

"Ask  no  questions,"  he  said;  "wait,  and  give  me  but  to 
time  ;  if  I  bring  back  that  you  long  for,  that  I  have  a  thousand 
times  heard  you  pray  for,  will  you  have  no  reward  for  him 
who  has  done  you  that  ser\4ce?  Put  away  those  trinkets, 
keep  them  :  it  shall  not  be  at  my  marriage,  it  shall  not  be  at 
yours,  but  if  man  can  do  it,  I  swear  a  day  shall  come  when  15 
there  shall  be  a  feast  in  j^our  house,  and  you  shall  be  proud 
to  wear  them.  I  say  no  more  now;  put  aside  these  words, 
and  lock  away  yonder  box  until  the  day  when  I  shall  remind 
you  of  both.  All  I  pray  of  you  now  is,  to  wait  and  to  re- 
member." 20 

"You  are  going  out  of  the  country?"  says  Beatrix,  in 
some   agitation. 

"Yes,  to-morrow,"  says  Esmond. 

"To  Lorraine, °  cousin?"  says  Beatrix,  laying  her  hand  on 
his  arm,  'twas  the  hand  on  which  she  wore  the  Duke's  brace-  25 
let.  "Stay,  Harry!"  continued  she,  with  a  tone  that  had 
more  despondency  in  it  than  she  was  accustomed  to  show. 
"  Hear  a  last  word.  I  do  love  you.  I  do  admire  you,  — 
who  would  not,  that  has  known  such  love  as  yours  has  been 
for  us  all?  But  I  think  I  have  no  heart;  at  least,  I  have  2° 
never  seen  the  man  that  could  touch  it;  and  had  I  found 
him,  I  would  have  followed  him  in  rags,  had  he  been  a  private 
soldier,  or  to  sea,  like  one  of  those  buccaneers  you  used  to 
read  to  us  about  when  we  were  children.  I  would  do  any- 
thing for  such  a  man,  bear  anything  for  him :  but  I  never  35 
found  one.  You  were  ever  too  much  of  a  slave  to  win  my 
heart,  even  my  Lord  Duke  could  not  command  it.  I  had 
not  been  happy  had  I  married  him.  I  knew  that  three 
months  after  our  engagement  —  and  was  too  vain  to  break 


420  HENRY   ESMOND 

it.  Oh,  Harry !  I  cried  once  or  twice,  not  for  him,  but  with 
tears  of  rage  because  I  could  not  be  sorry  for  him.  I  was 
frightened  to  find  I  was  glad  of  his  death;  and  were  I  joined 
to  you,  I  should  have  the  same  sense  of  servitude,  the  same 
5  longing  to  escape.  We  should  both  be  unhappy,  and  you 
the  most,  who  are  as  jealous  as  the  Duke  was  himself.  I 
tried  to  love  him ;  I  tried,  indeed  I  did :  affected  gladness 
when  he  came:  submitted  to  hear  when  he  was  by  me,  and 
tried  the  wife's  part  I  thought  I  was  to  play  for  the  rest  of 

10  my  days.  But  half  an  hour  of  that  complaisance  wearied 
me,  and  what  would  a  lifetime  be  ?  My  thoughts  were  away 
when  he  was  speaking;  and  I  was  thinking.  Oh,  that  this 
man  would  drop  my  hand,  and  rise  up  from  before  my 
feet !     I   knew  his  great   and   noble   qualities,   greater   and 

15  nobler  than  mine  a  thousand  times,  as  yours  are,  cousin,  I 
tell  you,  a  miUion  and  a  million  times  ■l)etter.  But  'twas  not 
for  these  I  took  him.  I  took  him  to  have  a  great  place  in 
the  world,  and  I  lost  it,  —  I  lost  it  and  do  not  deplore  him,  — 
and  I  often  thought  as  I  listened  to  his  fond  vows  and  ardent 

20  words,  Oh,  if  I  yield  to  this  man,  and  meet  the  other,  I  shall 
hate  him  and  leave  him  !  I  am  not  good,  Harry :  my  mother 
is  gentle  and  good  like  an  angel.  I  wonder  how  she  should 
have  had  such  a  child.  She  is  weak,  but  she  would  die  rather 
than  do  a  wrong;    I  am  stronger  than  she,  but  I  would  do 

25  it  out  of  defiance.  I  do  not  care  for  what  the  parsons  tell 
me  with  their  droning  sermons ;  I  used  to  see  them  at  Court 
as  mean  and  as  worthless  as  the  meanest  women  there. 
Oh,  I  am  sick  and  weary  of  the  world  !  I  wait  but  for  one 
thing,  and  when  'tis  done,  I  will  take  Frank's  religion  and 

30  your  poor  mother's,  and  go  into  a  nunnery,  and  end  hke  her. 
Shall  I  wear  the  diamonds  then  ?  —  they  say  the  nuns  wear 
their  best  trinkets  the  day  they  take  the  veil.  I  will  put 
them  away  as  you  bid  me  ;  farewell,  cousin,  mamma  is  pacing 
the  next  room,  racking  her  little  head  to  know  what  we  have 

35  been  saying.  She  is  jealous,  all  women  are.  I  sometimes 
think  that  is  the  only  womanly  quality  I  have. 

"Farewell.     Farewell,  brother."     She  gave  him  her  cheek 

as  a  brotherly  [)rivil('ge.     The  cheek  was  as  cold  as  marble. 

Esmond's  mistress  showed  no  signs  of  jealousy  when  he 


/ 


HENRY    ESMOND  421 


returned  to  the  room  where  she  was.  She  had  s^-hooled 
herself  so  as  to  look  quite  inscrutably,  when  she  had  a  mind. 
Amongst  her  other  feminine  qualities  she  had  that  of  being  a 
perfect  dissembler. 

He  rid°  away  from  Castlewood  to  attempt  the  task  he  was  5 
bound  on,  and  stand  or  fall  by  it ;  in  truth  his  state  of  mind 
was  such,  that  he  was  eager  for  some  out^ward  excitement  to 
counteract  that   gnawing  malady   which   he   was   inwardly 
enduring 


CHAPTER  VIII 

1  TRAVEL  TO  FRANCE,  AND  BRING  HOME  A  PORTRAIT  OF  RIGAUD 

Mr.  Esmond  did  not  think  fit  to  take  leave  at  Court;   or  10 
to  inform  all  the  world  of  Pall  Mall  and  the  coffee-houses, 
that  he  was  about  to  quit  England;    and  chose  to  depart 
in  the  most  private  manner  possible.     He  procured  a  pass 
as  for  a  Frenchman,  through  Dr.  Atterbury,  who  did  that 
business  for  him,   getting    the    signature    even    from    Lord  15 
Bolingbroke's  office,  without  any  personal  application  to  the 
Secretary.     Lockwood,   his   faithful   servant,    he   took   with 
him  to  "Castlewood,  and  left  behind  there :    giving  out  ere 
he  left  London  that  he  himself  was  sick,  and  gone  to  Hamp- 
shire°  for  country  air,  and  so  departed  as  silently  as  might  2c 
be  upon  his  business. 

As  Frank  Castlewood 's  aid  was  indispensable  for  Mr. 
Esmond's  scheme,  his  first  visit  was  to  Bruxelles  (passing 
by  way  of  Antwerp,  where  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  in 
exile),  and  in  the  first-named  place  Harry  found  his  dear  25 
young  Benedick,  °  the  married  man,  who  appeared  to  be 
rather  out  of  humour  with  his  matrimonial  chain,  and 
clogged  with  the  obstinate  embraces  which  Clotilda  kept 
round  his  neck.  Colonel  Esmond  was  not  presented 
to  her;  but  Monsieur  Simon°  was,  a  gentleman  of  the  Royal  3° 
Cravat  (Esmond  bethought  him  of  the  regiment  of  his 
honest  Irishman,  whom,  he  had  seen  that  da}"  after  ^lalplaquet, 
when  lie  first  set  eyes  011  the  young  King) ;    and  Monsieur 


422  HENRY    ESMOND 

Simon  was  introduced  to  the  Viscountess  Castlewood,  vei 
Comptesse  Wertheim ;  to,  the  numerous  counts,  the  Lady 
Clotilda's  tall  brothers;  to  her  father  the  chamberlain; 
and  to  the  lady  his  wife,  Frank's  mother-in-law,  a  tall  and 
5  majestick  person  of  large  proportions,  such  as  became  the 
mother  of  such  a  company  of  grenadiers,  as  her  warlike 
sons  formed.  The  whole  race  were  at  free  quarters,  in  the 
little  castle  nigh  to  Bruxelles  which  Frank  had  taken ;  rode 
his  horses ;    drank  his  wine ;    and  liveci  easily  at  the  poor 

lo  lad's  charges.  Mr.  Esmond  had  always  maintained  a  perfect 
fluency  in  the  French,  which  was  his  mother  tongue ;  and 
if  this  family  (that  spoke  French  with  the  twang  which  the 
Flemings  use)  discovered  any  inaccuracy  in  Mr.  Simon's 
pronunciation,    'twas  to  be   attributed  to  the  latter's  long 

x5  residence  in  England,  where  he  had  married  and  remained 
ever  since  he  was  taken  prisoner  at  Blenheim.  His  story 
was  perfectly  pat;  there  were  none  there  to  doubt  it,  save 
honest  Frank,  and  he  was  charmed  with  his  kinsman's 
scheme,  when  he  became  acquainted  with  it ;   and,  in  truth, 

20  always  admired  Colonel  Esmond  with  an  affectionate  fidelity, 
and  thought  his  cousin  the  wisest  and  best  of  all  cousins  and 
men.  Frank  entered  heart  and  soul  into  the  plan,  and 
Hked  it  the  better  as  it  was  to  take  him  to  Paris,  out  of  reach 
of  his  brothers,    his   father,   and   his  mother-in-law,   whose 

25  attentions  rather  fatigued  him. 

Castlewood,  I  have  said,  was  born  in  the  same  year  as 
the  Prince  of  Wales° ;  had  not  a  little  of  the  Prince's  air, 
height,  and  figure;  and,  especially  since  he  had  seen  the 
Chevalier    de    St.    George    on    the    occasion    before-named, 

30  took  no  small  pride  in  his  resemblance  to  a  person  so  illus- 
trious: which  likeness  he  increased  by  all  the  means  in  his 
power,  wearing  fair  brown  porriwigs,  such  as  the  Prince  wore, 
and  ribbons  and  so  forth  of  the  Chevalier's  colour. 

This  resemblance  was,  in  truth,  the  circumstance  on  which 

33  Mr.  l^lsmond's  scheme  was  founded;  and  having  secured 
Frank's  secrecy  and  enthusiasm,  he  left  him  to  continue 
his  journey,  and  see  the  other  personages  on  whom  its  success 
depended.  The  i)lace  whither  Mr.  Simon  next  travelled 
was  Bar,  in  Lorraine,  where  that  merchant  arrived  with  a 


/ 


HENRY   ESMOND  423 


consignment   of  broadcloths,   valuable  laces  from  Malines,° 
and  letters  for  his  correspondent  there. 

Would  you  know  how  a  prince,  heroick  from  misfortunes, 
and  descended  from  a  line  of  kings,  whose  race  seemed  to  be 
doomed  like  the  Atridse"  of  old ;  —  would  you  know  how  5 
he  was  employed,  when  the  envoy  who  came  to  him  through 
danger  and  difficulty  beheld  him  for  the  first  time  ?  The 
young  king,  in  a  flannel  jacket,  was  at  tennis  with  the  gentle- 
men of  his  suite,  crying  out  after  the  balls,  and  swearing  like 
the  meanest  of  his  subjects.  The  next  time  Mr.  Esmond  10 
saw  him,  'twas  when  iMonsieur  Simon  took  a  packet  of  laces 
to  Miss  Oglethorpe :  the  Prince's  antechamber  in  those 
days,  at  which  ignoble  door  men  were  forced  to  knock  for 
admission  to  his  Majesty.  The  admission  was  given,  the 
envoy  found  the  King  and  the  mistress  together ;  the  pair  15 
were  at  cards,  and  his  Majesty  was  in  li(iuor.  He  cared 
more  for  three  honours  than  three  Kingdoms;  and  a  half- 
dozen  glasses  of  ratafia°  made  .  him  forget  all  his  woes 
and  his  losses,  his  father's  crown,  and  his  grandfather's 
head.  20 

Mr.  Esmond  did  not  open  himself  to  the  I^ince  then.  His 
Majest}^  was  scarce  in  a  condition  to  hear  him  ;  and  he  doubted 
whether  a  King  who  drank  so  much  could  keep  a  secret  in  his 
fuddled  head ;  or  whether  a  hand  that  shook  so,  was  strong 
enough  to  grasp  at  a  crown.  However  at  last,  and  after  25 
taking  counsel  with  the  Prince's  advisers,  amongst  whom 
were  many  gentlemen  honest  and  faithful,  Esmond's  plan 
was  laid  before  the  King,  and  her  actual  IMajesty  Queen 
Oglethorpe,  in  council.  The  Prince  liked  the  scheme  well 
enough ;  'twas  easy  and  daring,  and  suited  to  his  reckless  30 
gaiety  and  lively  youthful  spirit.  In  the  morning,  after  he 
had  slept  his  wine  off,  he  was  very  gay,  li^'ely,  and  agreeable. 
His  manner  had  an  extreme  charm  of  archness,  and  a  kind 
simphdty;  and  to  do  her  justice,  her  Oglethorpean  Majesty 
was  kind,  acute,  resolute,  and  of  good  counsel ;  she  gave  the  35 
Prince  much  good  advice,  that  he  was  too  weak  to  follow ;  and 
loved  him  with  a  fidelity,  which  he  returned  with  an  ingrati- 
tude quite  Royal. 

Ha^^ng  his  own  forebodings,  regarding  his  scheme  should  it 


424  HENRY    ESMOND 

ever  be  fulfilled,  and  his  usual  seeptick  doubts  as  to  tne  benefit 
which  might  accrue  to  the  country  by  bringing  a  tipsy  young 
monarch  back  to  it,  Colonel  Esmond  had  his  audience  of  leave 
and  quiet.  Monsieur  Simon  took  his  departure.  At  any 
5  rate  the  youth  at  Bar  was  as  good  as  the  older  Pretender  at 
Hanover;  if  the  worst  came  to  the  worst,  the  Englishman 
could  be  dealt  with  as  easy  as  the  German.  Monsieur  Simon 
trotted  on  that  long  journey  from  Nancy °  to  Paris,  and  saw 
that  famous  town,  stealthily  and  like  a  spy,  as  in  truth  he 

lo  was ;  and  where,  sure,  more  magnificence  and  more  misery 
is  heaped  together,  more  rags  and  lace,  more  filth  and  gilding, 

/  than  in  any  city  in  this  world.  Here  he  was  put  in  commu- 
nication with  the  King's  best  friend,  his  half-brother,  the 
famous  Duke  of  Berwick :    Esmond  recognised  him  as  the 

15  stranger  who  had  visited  Castlewood  now  near  twenty  years 
ago.  His  Grace  opened  to  him  when  he  found  that  Mr. 
Esmond  was  one  of  Webb's  brave  regiment,  that  had  once 
been  his  Grace's  own.  He  was  the  sword  and  buckler  indeed 
of  the  Stuart  cause:  there  was  no  stain  on  his  shield,  except 

20  the  bar  across  it,  which  Marlborough's  sister  left  him.  Had 
Berwick  been  his  father's  heir,  James  the  Third  had  assuredly 
sat  on  the  English  throne.  He  could  dare,  endure,  strike, 
.speak,  l^e  silent.  The  fire  and  genius,  perhaps,  he  had  not 
(that  were  given  to  baser  men),  but  except  these,  he  had 

25  some  of  the  best  qualities  of  a  leader.  His  Grace  knew  Es- 
mond's father  and  history;  and  hinted  at  the  latter  in  such 
a  way  as  made  the  Colonel  to  think  he  was  aware  of  the  par- 
ticulars of  that  story.  But  Esmond  did  not  choose  to  enter 
on  it,  nor  did  the  Duke  press  him.     Mr.  Esmond  said,  "No 

30  doubt  he  should  come  by  his  name,  if  ever  greater  people 
came  by  theirs." 

What  confirmed  Esmond  in  his  notion  that  the  Duke  of 
]3erwi{;k  kn(;w  of  his  case  was,  that  when  the  Colonel  went  to 
pay  his  duty  at  St.  (iermains,  her  Majesty  once  addressed 

35  him  by  the  title  of  Marquis.  He  took  the  Qucen°  the  dutiful 
remembrances  of  her  goddaughter,  and  the  lady  whom,  in 
the  days  of  her  jjrosperity,  her  Majc^sty  had  befriended.  The 
Queen  remembered  Kac^liel  Esmond  perfectly  well,  had 
heard  of   my  Lord  Castlewood 's   conversion,  and  was  much 


/  HENRY    ESMOND  425 

edified  by  that  act  of  Heaven  in  his  favour.  She  knew  that 
others  of  that  family  had  been  of  the  only  true  church  too : 
"Your  father  and  your  mother,  Monsieur  le  Marquis,"  her 
Majesty  said  (that  was  the  only  time  she  used  the  phrase). 
Monsieur  Simon  bowed  very  low,  and  said  he  ha'd  found  other  5 
parents  than  his  own  who  had  taught  him  differently ;  but 
these  had  only  one  king:  on  which  her  Majesty  w^as  pleased 
to  give  him  a  medal  blessed  by  the  Pope,  which  had  been 
found  very  efficacious  in  cases  similar  to  his  own,  and  to 
promise  she  \vould  offer  up  prayers  for  his  conversion  and  la 
that  of  the  family :  which  no  doubt  this  pious  lady  did, 
though  up  to  the  present  moment,  and  after  twenty-seven 
years.  Colonel  Esmond  is  bound  to  say  that  neither  the  medal 
nor  the  prayers  have  had  the  slightest  knowm  effect  upon  his 
religious  convictions.  15 

As  for  the  splendours  of  Versailles,  Monsieur  Simon,  the 
merchant,  only  beheld  them  as  a  humble  and  distant  specta- 
tor, seeing  the  old  King°  but  once,  w^hen  he  went  to  feed  his 
carps;  and  asking  for  no  presentation  at  his  Majesty's  Court. 

By  this  time  my  Lord  Viscount  CastleW'Ood  w^as  got°  to  20 
Paris,  where,  as  the  London  prints  presently  announced, 
her  ladyship  was  brought  to  bed  of  a  son  and  heir.  For  a 
long  w^hile  afterwards  she  w^as  in  a  dehcate  state  of  health, 
and  ordered  by  the  physicians  not  to  travel ;  otherwise  'twas 
well  knowm  that  the  Viscount  Castlewood  proposed  returning  25 
to  England,  and  taking  up  his  residence  at  his  own  seat. 

Whilst  he  remained  at  Paris,  my  Lord  Castlew^ood  had  his 
picture  done  by  the  famous  French  painter  Monsieur  Rigaud, 
a  present  for  his  mother  in  London  ;  and  this  piece  Monsieur 
Simon  took  back  with  him  when  he  returned  to  that  city,  30 
which  he  reached  about  May,  in  the  year  1714,  very  soon 
after  which  time  my  Lady  Castlewood  and  her  daughter,  and 
their  kinsman.  Colonel  Esmond,  who  had  been  at  Castlewood 
all  this  time,  hkewise  returned  to  London ;  her  ladyship 
occupying  her  house  at  Kensington,  Mr.  Esmond  returning  35 
to  his  lodgings  at  Knightsbridge,  nearer  the  'town,  and  once 
more  making  his  appearance  at  all  publick  places,  his  health 
greatly  improved  by  his  long  stay  in  the  country. 

The  portrait  of  my  lord,  in  a  handsome  gilt  frame,  was 


426  HENRY   ESMOND 

hung  up  in  the  place  of  honour  in  her  ladyship's  drawing- 
room.  His  lordship  was  represented  in  his  scarlet  uniform, 
of  Captain  of  the  Guard,  with  a  light-brown  perriwig,  a  cuirass 
under  his  coat,  a  blue  ribbon,  and  a  fall  of  Bruxelles  lace. 
5  Many  of  her  ladyship's  friends  admired  the  piece  beyond 
measure,  and  flocked  to  see  it;  Bishop  Atterbury,°  Mr. 
Lesly,  good  old  Mr.  Collier,  and  others  amongst  the  clergy 
were  delighted  with  the  performance,  and  many  among 
the  first  quality  examined  and  praised  it;   only  I  must  own 

lo  that  Doctor  Tusher  happening  to  come  up  to  London,  and 
seeing  the  picture  (it  was  ordinarily  covered  by  a  curtain,  but 
on  this  day  Miss  Beatrix  happened  to  be  looking  at  it  when 
the  Doctor  arrived),  the  Vicar  of  Castlewood  vowed  he  could 
not  see  any  resemblance  in  the  piece  to  his  old  pupil,  except, 

15  perhaps,  a  little  about  the  chin  and  the  perriwig;  but  we  all 
of  us  convinced  him,  that  he  had  not  seen  Frank  for  five  years 
or  more;  that  he  knew  no  more  about  the  Fine  Arts  than  a 
plough-boy,  and  that  he  must  be  mistaken ;  and  we  sent  him 
home  assured  that  the  piece  was  an  excellent  likeness.     As 

20  for  my  Lord  Bolingbroke,  who  honoured  her  ladyship  with  a 
visit  occasionally,  when  Colonel  Esmond  showed  him  the 
picture,  he  burst  out  laughing,  and  asked  what  devilry  he  was 
engaged  on  ?  Esmond  owned  simply  that  the  portrait  was 
not  that  of  Viscount  Castlewood,  besought  the  Secretary  on 

25  his  honour  to  keep  the  secret,  said  that  the  ladies  of  the 
house  were  enthusiastick  Jacobites,  as  was  well  known ;  and 
confessed  that  the  picture  was  that  of  the  Chevalier  St. 
George. 

The  truth  is,  that  Mr.  Simon,  waiting  upon  Lord  Castle- 

30  wood  one  day  at  Monsieur  Rigaud's,  whilst  his  lordship  was 
sitting  for  his  picture,  affected  to  be  much  struck  with  a  piece 
representing  the  Chevalier,  whereof  the  head  only  was  fin- 
ished, and  purchased  it  of  the  ])ainter  for  a  hundred  crowns. 
It  had  been  intended,  the  artist  said,  for  Miss  Oglethorpe,  the 

35  Pnr)C(;'s  mistress,  but  that  young  lady  quitting  Paris,  had 
left  the  work  on  the  artist 's  hands;  and  taking  this  piece 
home,  when  my  lord's  portrait  arrived,  Colonel  Esmond,  alias 
Monsieur  Simon,  had  copied  the  uniform  and  other  acces- 
sories from  my  lord's  picture  to  fill  u{)  Rigaud's  incomplete 


/  HENRY   ESMOND  42T 

canvas :  the  Colonel  all  his  life  having  been  a  practitioner  of 
painting,°  and  especially  followed  it  during  his  long  residence 
in  the  cities  of  Flanders,  among  the  master-pieces  of  Vandyck 
and  Rubens.  My  grandson  hath  the  piece,  such  as  it  is,  in 
Virginia  now.  5 

At  the  commencement  of  the  month  of  June,  Miss  Beatrix 
Esmond,  and  my  Lady  Viscountess,  her  mother,  arrived 
from  Castlewood ;  the  former  to  resume  her  service  at  Court, 
which  had  been  interrupted  by  the  fatal  catastrophe  of  Duke 
Hamilton's  death.  She  once  more  took  her  place  then  in  k 
her  Majesty's  suite,  and  at  the  maids'  table,  being  always  a 
favourite  with  Mrs.  Masham,  the  Queen's  chief  woman,  partly 
perhaps,  on  account  of  her  bitterness  against  the  Duchess  of 
Marlborough,  whom  Miss  Beatrix  loved  no  better  than  her 
rival  did.  The  gentlemen  about  the  Court,  my  Lord  Boling-  15 
broke  amongst  others,  owned  that  the  young  lady  had  come 
back  handsomer  than  ever,  and  that  the  serious  and  tragick 
air,  which  her  face  now  involuntarily  wore,  became  her  better 
than  her  former  smiles  and  archness. 

All  the  old  domesticks  at  the  little  house  of  Kensington  20. 
Square  were  changed;    the  old  steward  that  had  served  the 
family  any  time  these  five-and-twenty  years,  since  the  birth  of 
the  children  of  the  house,  was  despatched  into  the  kingdom 
of  Ireland  to  see  my  lord's  estate  there :    the  housekeeper, 
who  had  been  my  lady's  woman  time  out  of  mind,  and  the  25, 
attendant  of  the  young  children,  was  sent  away  grumbling  to 
Walcote,  to  see  to  the  new  painting  and  preparing  of  that 
house,  which  my  Lady  Dowager  intended  to  occupy  for  the 
future,  giving  up  Castlewood  to  her  daughter-in-law,  that 
might  be    expected    daily    from    France.     Another    servant  30 
the    Viscountess    had    was     dismissed    too  —  with    a    gra- 
tuity —  on  the  pretext  that  her  ladyship's  train  of  domes- 
ticks  must  be  diminished ;   so  finally,  there  was  not  left  in 
the   household   a    single    person  who    had    belonged    to    it 
during  the  time  my  young  Lord    Castlewood    was    yet    at  35 
home. 

For  the  plan  which  Colonel  Esmond  had  in  ^^ew,  and  the 
stroke  he  intended,  'twas  necessary  that  the  very  smallest 
number  of  persons  should  be  put  in  possession  of  his  secret.. 


428  HENRY  ESMOND 

It  scarce  was  known,  except  to  three  or  four  out  of  his  family 
and  it  was  kept  to  a  wonder. 

On  the  10th  of  June,  1714,  there  came  by  Mr.  Prior's  mes- 
senger from  Paris,  °  a  letter  from  my  Lord  Viscount  Castle- 
5  wood  to  his  mother,  saying  that  he  had  been  foolish  in  regard 
of  money  matters,  that  he  was  ashamed  to  own  he  had  lost 
at  play,  and  by  other  extravagancies;  and  that  instead  of 
having  great  entertainments  as  he  had  hoped  at  Castle  wood 
this  year,  he  must  live  as  quiet  as  he  could,  and  make  every 

lo  effort  to  be  saving.  So  far  every  word  of  poor  Frank's  letter 
was  true,  nor  was  there  a  doubt  that  he  and  his  tall  brothers- 
in-law  had  spent  a  great  deal  more  than  they  ought,  and 
engaged  the  revenues  of  the  Castlewood  property,  which  the 
fond  mother  had  husbanded   and  improved  so  carefully  dur- 

15  ing  the  time  of  her  guardianship. 

His  "Clotilda,"  Castlewood  went  on  to  say,  "was  still  deli- 
cate, and  the  physicians  thought  her  lying-in  had  best  take 
place  at  Paris.  He  should  come  without  her  ladyship,  and  be 
at  his  mother's  house,  about  the  17th  or  18th  day  of  June, 

2o  proposing  to  take  horse  from  Paris  immediately,  and  bringing 
but  a  single  servant  with  him ;  and  he  requested  that  the 
lawyers  of  Gray's  Inn  might  be  invited  to  meet  him  with 
their  account,  and  the  land-steward  come  from  Castlewood 
with  his,  so  that  he  might  settle  with  them  speedily,  raise  a 

^S  sum  of  money  whereof  he  stood  in  need,  and  be  back  to  his 
viscouQtess  by  the  time  of  her  lying-in."  Then  his  lordship 
gave  som3  of  the  news  of  the  town,  sent  his  remembrance  to 
kinsfolk,  and  so  the  letter  ended.  'Twas  put  in  the  common 
post,  and  no  doubt  the  French  police  and  the  English  there 

30  had  a  copy  of  it,   to  which  they  were  exceeding  welcome. 
Two  days  after  another  letter  was  despatched  by  the  pub- 
lick  post  of  France,  in  the  same  open  way,  and  this,  after 
giving  news  of  the  fashion  at  Court  there,  ended  by  the  fol- 
lowing sentences,  in  which  but  for  those  that  had  the  key, 

55  'twould  be  difficult  for  any  man  to  find  any  secret  lurked 
at  all : 

"(The  King  will  take)  medicine  on  Thursday.  His  Ma- 
jesty is  better  than  he  hath  been  of  late,  though  incommoded 
by  indigestion  from  his  too  great  appetite.     Madame  Main- 


HENRY   ESMOND  429 

tenon  continues  well.  They  have  performed  a  play  of  Mons. 
Racine  at  St.  Cyr.°  The  Duke  of  Shrewsbury  and  Mr.  Prior 
our  envoy,  and  all  the  English  nobility  here  were  present  at  it. 
(The  Viscount  Castle  wood's  passports)  were  refused  to  him, 
'twas  said ;  his  lordship  being  sued  by  a  goldsmith,  for  Vais-  5 
selle  plate  °  and  a  pearl  necklace  supplied  to  Mademoiselle 
Meruel  of  the  French  Comedy.  Tis  a  pity  such  news  should 
get  abroad  (and  travel  to  England)  about  our  young  nobility 
here.  Mademoiselle  Meruel  has  been  sent  to  the  Fort  I'Eves- 
que;  they  say  she  has  ordered  not  only  plate,  but  furniture,  10 
and  a  chariot  and  horses  (under  that  lord's  name),  of  which 
extravagance  his  unfortunate  Viscountess  knows  nothing. 

"  (His  Majesty  will  be)  eighty-two  years  of  age°  on  his 
next  birthday.  The  Court  prepares  to  celebrate  it  with  a 
great  feste.  Mr.  Prior  is  in  a  sad  way  about  their  refusing  15 
at  home  to  send  him  his  plate.  All  here  admired  my  Lord 
Viscount's  portrait,  and  said  it  was  a  master-piece  of  Rigaud. 
Have  you  seen  it  ?  It  is  (at  the  Lady  Castlewood's  house  in 
Kensington  Square),  I  think  no  English  painter  could  pro- 
duce such  a  piece.'  20 

"Our  poor  friend  the  Abbe  hath  been  at  the  Bastile,°  but 
is  now  transported  to  the  Conciergerie°  (where  his  friends  may 
\isit  him.  They  are  to  ask  for)  a  remission  of  his  sentence 
soon.  Let  us  hope  the  poor  rogue  will  have  repented  in 
prison.  25 

"  (The  Lord  Castlewood)  has  had  the  affair  of  the  plate 
made  up,  and  departs  for  England. 

"Is  not  this  a  dull  letter?  I  have  a  cursed  headache  with 
drinking  with  Mat°  and  some  more  over  night,  and  tipsy  or 
sober  am  Thine  ever ."      3° 

All  this  letter,  save  some  dozen  of  words  which  I  have  put 
above  between  brackets,  was  mere  idle  talk,  though  the  sub- 
stance of  the  letter  was  as  important  as  any  letter  well  could 
be.  It  told  those  that  had  the  key,  that  the  King  will  take  the 
Viscount  Castlewood's  passports  and  travel  to  England  under  35 
that  lord's  name.  His  Majesty  will  be  at  the  Lady  Castlewood's 
house  in  Kensington  Square,  where  his  frieiids  may  visit  him; 
they  are  to  ask  for  the  Lord  Castlewood.     This  note  may  have 


430  HENRY  ESMOND 

passed  under  Mr.  Prior's  eyes,  and  those  of  our  new  allies 
the  French,  and  taught  them  nothing;  though  it  explains 
sufficiently  to  persons  in  London  what  the  event  was  which 
was    about   to    happen,    as    'twill    show    those    who    read 

5  my  memoirs  a  hundred  years  hence,  what  was  that  errand 
on  which  Colonel  Esmond  of  late  had  been  busy.  Silently 
and  s\viftly  to  do  that  about  which  others  were  conspiring, 
and  thousands  of  Jacobites  all  over  the  country,  clumsily 
caballing  ° ;   alone  to  effect  that  which  the  leaders  here  were 

ro  only  talking  about ;  to  bring  the  Prince  of  Wales  into  the 
country  openly  in  the  face  of  all,  under  Bolingbroke's  ver}^ 
eyes,  the  walls  placarded  with  the  proclamation  signed  with 
the  Secretary's  name,  and  offering  five  hundred  pounds  re- 
ward for  his   apprehension:   this   was  a  stroke,  the   playing 

15  and  winning  of  which  might  well  give  any  adventurous  spirit 
pleasure  :  the  loss  of  the  stake  might  involve  a  heavy  penalty, 
but  all  our  family  were  eager  to  risk  that  for  the  glorious 
chance  of  winning  the  game. 

Xor  should  it  be  called  a  game,  save  perhaps  with  the 

>o  chief  player,  who  was  not  more  or  less  sceptickal  than  most 
publick  men  with  whom  he  had  acquaintance  in  that  age. 
(Is  there  ever  a  publick  man  in  England  that  altogether 
believes  in  his  party?  Is  there  one,  however  doubtful,  that 
will  not  fight  for  it  ?)     Young  Frank  was  ready  to  figlit  with- 

25  out  much  thinking,  he  was  a  Jacobite  as  his  father  before 
him  was;  all  the  Esmonds  were  royalists.  Give  him  but 
the  word,  he  would  cry  "God  save  King  James,"  before  the 
palace  guard,  or  at  the  May-pole°  in  the  Strand ;  and  with 
respect  to  the  women,  as  is  usual  with  them,  'twas  not  a  ques- 

30  tion  of  party  but  of  faith ;  their  belief  was  a  j^assion ;  either 
Esmond's  mistress  or  her  daughter  would  have  died  for  it 
cheerfully.  I  have  laughed  often,  talking  of  King  William's 
reign,  and  said  I  thought  Lady  ('astlewood  was  disappointed 
the  King  did  not  persec^ute  the  family  more;   and  those  who 

35  know  the  nature  of  women,  may  fancy  for  themselves,  what 
needs  not  here  be  written  down,  the  raj^ture  with  which 
these  neophytes  received  the  mystery  wIkmi  made  known  to 
them,  the  eagerness  with  which  they  looked  forward  to  its 
completion ;  the  reverence  which  they  paid  the  minister  who 


'  HENRY  ESMOND  431 

initiated  them  into  that  secret  Truth,  now  known  only  to  a 
few,  but  presently  to  reign  over  the  world.  Sure  there  is  no 
bound  to  the  trustingness  of  women.  Look  at  Arria°  wor- 
shipping the  drunken  clod-pate  of  a  husband  who  beats  her; 
look  at  Cornelia  treasuring  as  a  jewel  in  her  maternal  heart,  5 
the  oaf  her  son;  I  have  known  a  woman  preach  Jesuits' 
bark,  and  afterwards  Dr.  Berkeley's  tar-water,°  as  though 
to  swallow  them  were  a  divine  decree,  and  to  refuse  them  no 
better  than  blasphemy. 

On  his  return  from  France  Colonel  Esmond  put  himself  at  10 
the  head  of  this  little  knot  of  fond  conspirators.  No  death 
or  torture  he  knew  would  frighten  them  out  of  their  constancy. 
When  he  detailed  his  plan  for  bringing  the  King  back,  his 
elder  mistress  thought  that  that  Restoration  was  to  be 
attributed  under  heaven  to  the  Castlewood  family  and  to  its  15 
chief,  and  she  worshipped  and  loved  Esmond,  if  that  could 
be,  more  than  ever  she  had  done.  She  doubted  not  for  one 
moment  of  the  success  of  his  scheme,  to  mistrust  which 
would  have  seemed  impious  in  her  eyes.  And  as  for  Beatrix, 
when  she  became  acquainted  with  the  plan,  and  joined  20 
it,  as  she  did  with  all  her  heart,  she  gave  Esmond  one  of  her 
searching  bright  looks:  "Ah,  Harry,"  says  she,  "why  were 
you  not  the  head  of  our  house?  You  are  the  only  one  fit 
to  raise  it ;  why  do  you  give  that  silly  boy  the  name  and  the 
honour  ?  But  'tis  so  in  the  world :  those  get  the  prize  that  25 
don't  deserve  or  care  for  it.  I  wish  I  could  give  you  your 
silly  prize,  cousin,  but  I  can't;  I  have  tried  and  I  can't." 
And  she  went  away,  shaking  her  head  mournfully,  but 
always  it  seemed  to  Esmond,  that  her  liking  ^nd  respect 
for  him  was  greatly  increased,  since  she  knew  what  capability 
he  had  both  to  act  and  bear ;  to  do  and  to  forgo. 


CHAPTER   IX 

THE  ORIGINAL   OF   THE    PORTRAIT   COMES   TO   ENGLAND 

'TwAS  announced  in  the  family  that  my  Lord  Castlewood 
would   arrive,   having  a   confidential   French   gentleman   in 


432  HENRY    ESMOND 

his  suite  who  acted  as  secretary  to  his  lordship,  and  who 
being  a  Papist,  and  a  foreigner  of  a  good  family,  though 
now  in  rather  a  menial  place,  would  have  his  meals  served 
in  his  chamber,  and  not  with  the  domesticks  of  the  house. 
5  The  Viscountess  gave  up  her  bed-chamber  contiguous  to 
her  daughter's,  and  having  a  large  convenient  closet  attached 
to  it,  in  which  a  bed  was  put  up,  ostensibly  for  Monsieur 
Baptiste,  the  Frenchman;  though,  'tis  needless  to  say, 
when  the  doors  of  the  apartment  were  locked,  and  the  two 

10  guests  retired  within  it,  the  young  Viscount  became  the 
servant  of  the  illustrious  Prince  whom  he  entertained,  and 
gave  up  gladly  the  more  convenient  and  airy  chamber  and 
bed  to  his  master.  Madam  Beatrix  also  retired  to  the 
upper  region,   her  chamber  being  converted  into  a  sitting- 

15  room  for  my  lord.  The  better  to  carry  the  deceit,  Beatrix 
affected  to  grumble  before  the  servants,  and  to  be  jealous 
that  she  was  turned  out  of  her  chamber  to  make  way  for 
my  lord. 

No  small  preparations  were  made,  you  may  be  sure,  and 

20  no  slight  tremor  of  expectation  caused  the  hearts  of  the 
gentle  ladies  of  Castle  wood  to  flutter,  before  the  arrival 
of  the  personages  who  were  about  to  honour  their  house. 
The  chamber  was  ornamented  with  flowers ;  the  bed  covered 
with  the  very  finest  of  linen ;    the  two  ladies  insisting  on 

25  making  it  themselves,  and  kneeling  down  at  the  bedside 
and  kissing  the  sheets  out  of  I'espect  for  the  web  that  was  to 
hold  the  sacred  person  of  a  King.  The  toilet  was  of  silver 
and  crystal ;  there  was  a  copy  of  Eikon-Basilikc°  laid  on 
the  writing-table;    a  portrait  of  the  martyred  King,  hung 

30  always  over  the  mantel,  having  a  sword  of  my  poor  Lord 
Castlewood  underneath  it,  and  a  little  picture  or  emblem 
which  the  widow  loved  always  to  have  before  her  eyes  on 
waking,  and  in  which  the  hair  of  her  lord  and  her  two  chil- 
dren was  worked  together.     Her  books  of  private  devotions, 

35  as  they  were  ail  of  the  lOnglish  Church,  she  carried  away 
with  her  to  the  upj)er  apartment  which  she  destined  for 
herself.  The  ladies  showed  Mr.  lOsmond,  when  they  were  com- 
pleted, the  fond  pre|)arati()ns  they  had  made.  'Twas  then 
Beatrix  knelt  down  and  kissed  the  linen  sheets.     As  for  her 


HENRY    ESMOND  433 

mother,  Lady  Castlewood  made  a  curtsey  at  the  door,  as 
she  would  have  done  to  the  altar  on  entering  a  church,  and 
owned  that  she  considered  tiie  chamber  in  a  manner  sacred. 

The  company  in  the  servants'  hall  never  for  a  moment 
supposed  that  these  preparations  were  made  for  an}^  other  5 
person   than  the   young    Viscount,   the   lord   of   the   house, 
whom  his  fond  mother  had  been  for  so  many  years  without 
seeing.     Both   ladies   were   perfect   housewives,    having  the 
greatest  skill  in  the  making  of  confections,  scented  waters, 
etc.,  and  keeping  a  notable  superintendence  over  the  kitchen.  10 
Calves  enough  were  killed  to  feed  an  army  of  prodigal  sons,^ 
Esmond  thought,  and  laughed  when  he  came  to  wait  on  the 
ladies,  on  the  day  when  the  guests  were  to  arrive,  to  find 
two  pairs  of  the  finest  and  roundest  arms  to  be  seen  in  Eng- 
land (my  Lady  Castlewood  was  remarkable  for  this  beauty  of  15 
her  person),  covered  with  flour  up  above  the  elbows,  and 
preparing  paste,  and  turning  rolling-pins  in  the  housekeeper's 
closet.     The  guest  would  not  arrive  till  supper-time,  and  my 
lord  would  prefer    havnig  that  meal  in  his   own  chamber. 
You  may  be  sure,  the  brightest  plate  of  the  house  was  laid  20 
out  there,  and  can  understand  why  it  was  that  the  ladies 
insisted  that  they  alone  would  wait  upon  the  young  chief 
of  the  famjiy. 

Taking  horse,  Colonel  Esmond  rode  rapidly  to  Rochester, ° 
i^nd  there  awaited  the  King  in  that  very ,  town  where  his  25 
father  had  last  set  his  foot  on  the  English  shore.  A  room 
had  been  provided  at  an  inn  there  for  my  Lord  Castlewood 
and  his  servant ;  and  Colonel  Esmond  timed  his  ride  so  well 
that  he  had  scarce  been  half  an  hour  in  the  place,  and  was 
looking  over  the  balcony  into  the  yard  of  the  inn,  when  two  30 
travellers  rode  in  at  the  inn-gate,  and  the  Colonel  running 
down,  the  next  moment  embraced  his  dear  3'oung  lord. 

My  lord's  companion,  acting  the  part  of  a  domestick,  dis- 
mounted and  was  for  holding  the  Viscount's  stirrup;  but 
Colonel  Esmond,  calling  to  his  own  man,  who  was  in  the  35 
court,  bade  him  take  the  horses  and  settle  with  the  lad  who 
had  ridden  the  post  along  with  the  two  travellers,  crying 
out  in  a  cavalier  tone,  in  the  French  language  to  my  lord's 
companion,  and  affecting  to  grumble  that  my  lord's  fellow 


434  HENRY    ESMOND 

was  a  Frenchman,  and  did  not  know  the  money  or  habits 
of  the  country  :  —  "  My  man  will  see  to  the  horses,  Baptiste," 
says  Colonel  Esmond:  "do  you  understand  English?" 
"Very  leetle."  "So,  follow  my  lord  and  wait  upon  him  at 
5  dinner  in  his  own  room."  The  landlord  and  his  people 
came  up  presently  bearing  the  dishes,  'twas  well  they  made 
a  noise  and  stir  in  the  gallery,  or  they  might  have  found 
Colonel  Esmond  on  his  knee  before  Lord  Castle  wood's  ser- 
vant,  welcoming  his   Majesty  to  his  kingdom,   and  kissing 

10  the  hand  of  the  King.  We  told  the  landlord  that  the  French- 
man would  wait  on  his  master;  and  Esmond's  man  was 
ordered  to  keep  sentry  in  the  gallery  without  the  door. 
The  Prince  dined  with  a  good  appetite,  laughing  and  talking 
very  gaily,  and  condescendingly  bidding  his  two  companions 

15  to  sit  with  him  at  table.  He  was  in  better  spirits  than  poor 
Frank  Castlewood,  who  Esmond  thought  might  be  woe- 
begone on  account  of  parting  with  his  divine  Clotilda ;  but 
the  Prince  wishing  to  take  a  short  siesta  after  dinner,  and 
retiring  to  an  inner  chamber  where  there  was  a  bed,  the 

20  cause  of  poor  Frank's  discomfiture  came  out;  and  bursting 
into  tears,  with  many  expressions  of  fondness,  friendship, 
and  humiliation,  the  faithful  lad  gave  his  kinsman  to  under- 
stand that  he  now  knew  all  the  truth,  and  the  sacrifices 
which  Colonel  Esmond  had  made  for  him. 

ts  Seeing  no  good  in  acquainting  poor  Frank  with  that 
secret,  Mr.  Esmond  had  entreated  his  mistress  also  not  to 
rc\'eal  it  to  her  son.  The  Prince  had  told  the  poor  lad  all 
as  they  were  riding  from  Dover:  "I  had  as  lief  he  had  shot 
me,  cousin,"  Frank  said:    "I  knew  you  v/ere  the  best,  and 

30  the  bravest,  and  the  kindest  of  all  men  "  (so  the  enthusias- 

tick  young  fellow  went  on),  "but  I  never  thought  I  owed  you 

what  I  do,  and  can  scarce  bear  the  weight  of  the  obligation." 

"I  stand  in  the  place  of  your  father,"  says  Mr.  Esmond 

kindly,  "and  sure  a  father  may  dispossess  himself  in  favour 

35  of  his  son.  I  abdicate  the  twoi)enny  crown,  and  invest  you 
with  the  kingdom  of  Brentfoi-(l° :  don't  be  a  fool  and  cry, 
you  make  a  much  tailor  and  handsomer  viscount  than  ever 
I  could."  Hut  the  fond  boy  with  oaths  and  pi'otestations, 
laughter   and   incoherent  outbreaks  of  passionate  emotion, 


/  HENRY    ESMOND  435 

could  not  be  got,  for  some  little  time,  to  put  up  with  Esmond's 
raillery;  wanted  to  kneel  down  to  him,  and  kissed  his  hand; 
asked  him  and  implored  him,  to  order  him  something,  to  bid 
Castle  wood  give  his  own  life  up  or  take  sombody  else's;  any- 
thing so  that  he  might  show  his  gratitude  for  the  generosity  5 
Esmond  showed  him. 

"The  K ,°  he  laughed,"  Frank  said,  pointing  to  the 

door  where  the  sleeper  was,  and  speaking  in  a  low  tone; 
'  I  don't  think  he  should  have  laughed  as  he  told  me  the  story. 
As  we  rode  along  from  Dover,  talking  in  French,  he  spoke  to 
about  you,  and  your  coming  to  him  at  Bar;  he  called  you 
'le  grand  seneux,°'  Don  Bellianis  of  Greece, °  and  I  don't 
know  what  names;  mimicking  your  manner"  (here  Castle- 
wood  laughed  himself) — "and  he  did  it  very  well.  He 
seems  to  sneer°  at  everything.  He  is  not  like  a  king :  some-  15 
how,  Harry,  I  fancy  you  are  like  a  king.  He  does  not  seem 
to  think  what  a  stake  we  are  all  playing.  He  would  have 
stopped  at  Canterbury  to  run  after  a  barmaid  there,  had  I 
not  implored  him  to  come  on.  He  hath  a  house  at  Chaillot 
where  he  used  to  go  and  bury  himself  for  weeks  away  from  20 
the  Queen,  and  with  all  sorts  of  bad  company,"  says  Frank, 
with  a  demure  look;  "you  may  smile,  but  I  am  not  the 
wild  fellow  I  was;  no,  no,  I  have  been  taught  better,"  says 
Castlewood  devoutly,  making  a  sign  on  his  breast. 

"Thou  art  my  dear  brave  boy,"  says  Colonel  Esmond,  25 
touched  at  the  young  fellow's  simplicity,  "and  there  will  be 
a   noble    gentleman  at  Castlewood  so  long  as  my  Frank  is 
there." 

The  impetuous  young  lad  was  for  going  down  on  his 
knees  again,  with  another  explosion  of  gratitude,  but  that  30 
we  heard  the  voice  from  the  next  chamber  of  the  august 
sleeper,  just  waking,  calling  out:  —  "Eh,  La-Fleur,  un 
verre  d'eau°;"  his  Majesty  came  out  yawning:  —  "A 
pest,"  says  he,  "upon  your  Enghsh  ale,  'tis  so  strong  that, 
ma  foi,°  it  hath  turned  my  head."  35 

The  effect  of  the  ale  was  like  a  spur  upon  our  horses,  and 
we  rode  very  quickly  to  London,  reaching  Kensington  at 
nightfall.  Mr.  Esmond's  servant  was  left  behind  at  Rochester, 
to  take  care  of  the  th-ed  horses,  whilst  we  had  fresh  beasts 


436  HENRY   ESMOND 

provided  along  the  road.  And  galloping  by  the  Prince's 
side  the  Colonel  explained  to  the  Prince  of  Wales  what  his 
movements  had  been ;  who  the  friends  were  that  knew  of  the 
expedition;  w^hom,  as  Esmond  conceived,  the  Prince  should 
5  trust;  entreating  him,  above  all,  to  maintain  the  very 
closest  secrecy  until  the  time  should  come  when  his  Royal 
Highness  should  appear.  The  town  swarmed  with  friends 
of  the  Prince's  cause;  there  were  scores  of  correspondents 
with  St.  Germains ;    Jacobites  known  and  secret ;    great  in 

lo  station  and  humble ;  about  the  Court  and  the  Queen ;  in 
the  Parliament,  Church,  and  among  the  merchants  in  the 
City.  The  Prince  haxl  friends  numberless  in  the  army, 
in  the  Privy  Council,  and  the  Officers  of  State.  The  great 
object,  as  it  seemed,  to  the  small  band  of  persons,  who  had 

15  concerted  that  bold  stroke,  who  had  brought  the  Queen's 
brother  into  his  native  country,  was  that  his  visit  should 
remain  unknown,  till  the  proper  time  came,  when  his  pre- 
sence should  surprise  friends  and  enemies  alike ;  and  the 
latter  should  be  found  so  unprepared  and  disunited,  that 

20  they  should  not  find  time  to  attack  him.  We  feared  more 
from  his  friends  than  from  his  enemies.  Thq.  lies, 
and  tittle-tattle  sent  over  to  St.  Germains  by  the 
Jacobite  agents  about  London,  had  done  an  incalculable 
mischief  to  his  cause,  and    wofully  misguided  him,  and   it 

25  was  from  these  especially,  that  the  persons  engaged  in  the 
present  venture  were  anxious  to  defend  the  chief  actor 
in  it.^ 

The    party   reached    London   by   nightfall,    leaving   their 
horses  at  the  Posting-House  over  against  Westminster,  and 

30  being  ferried°  over  the  water  where  Lady  Esmond's  coach 
was  already  in  waiting.  Li  another  hour  we  were  all  landed 
at  Kensington,  and  the  mistress  of  the  house  had  that  satisfac- 
tion which  her  heart  had  yearned  after  for  many  years, 
once  more  to  embrace  her  son,  who,  on  his  side,  with  all  his 

35  '  The  managers  were  tho  Bishop, "^  who  cutinot  bo  hurt  by  having 
his  iKUUo  rricii1ioiu>(i,  a  vory  active  aiui  loyal  Non-conformist  Divine, 
a  lady  in  tiie  hisliost  favour  at  (Joint,  with  whom  Beatrix  Esmond 
liad  communication,  and  two  noblemen  of  the  greatest  rank,  and  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Commons,   who    was    imi)licated   in    more 

40  transactions  than  one  in  behalf  of  the  Stuart  family. 


/  HENRY   ESMOND  437 

waywardness,  ever  retained  a  most  tender  affection  for  his 
parent. 

She  did  not  refrain  from  this  expression  of  her  feehng,  though 
the  domesticks  were  by,  and  my  Lord  Castle  wood's  attend- 
ant stood  in  the  hall.  Esmond  had  to  whisper  to  him  in  5 
French  to  take  his  hat  off.  Monsieur  Baptiste  was  constantly 
neglecting  his  part  with  an  inconceivable  levity :  more  than 
once  on  the  ride  to  London,  little  observations  of  the  stranger, 
*  light  remarks,  and  words  betokening  the  greatest  ignorance 
of  the  country  the  Prince  came  to  govern,  had  hurt  the  10 
susceptibility  of  the  two  gentlemen  forming  his  escort; 
nor  could  either  help  owning  in  his  secret  mind  that  they 
would  have  had  his  behaviour  otherwise,  and  that  the  laugh- 
ter and  the  lightness,  not  to  say  licence,  which  characterised 
his  talk,  scarce  befitted  such  a  great  Prince  and  such  a  solemn  15 
occasion.  Xot  but  that  he  could  act  at  proper  times  ^\ith 
spirit  and  dignity.  He  had  behaved,  as  we  all  knew,  in  a 
very  courageous  manner  on  the  field.  Esmond  had  seen  a 
copy  of  the  letter  the  Prince  writ  with  his  own  hand  when 
urged  by  his  friends  in  England  to  abjure  his  religion,  and  20 
admired  that  manly  and  magnanimous  reply  by  which  he 
refused  to  yield  to  the  temptation.  Monsieur  Baptiste  took 
off  his  hat,  blushing  at  the  hint  Colonel  Esmond  ventured 
to  give  him,  and  said:  —  "Tenez,°  elle  est  jolie,  la  petite 
mere;  Foi-de-Chevaher !  elle  est  charmante;  mais  I'autre,  25 
qui  est  cette  nymphe,  cet  astre  qui  brille,  cette  Diane  qui 
descend  sur  nous?"  And  he  started  back,  and  pushed 
forward,  as  Beatrix  was  descending  the  stair. °  She  was 
in  colours  for  the  first  time  at  her  own  house ;  she  wore  the 
diamonds  Esmond  gave  her ;  it  had  been  agreed  between  30 
them,  that  she  should  wear  these  brilliants  on  the  day  when 
the  King  should  enter  the  house;  and  a  Queen  she  looked, 
radiant  in  charms,  and  magnificent  and  imperial  in 
beauty. 

Castlewood    himself    was    startled    by    that    beauty    and  35 
splendour;  he  stepped  back  and  gazed  at  his  sister  as  though 
he  had  not  been  aware  before  (nor  was  he  very  likely)  how 
perfectly  lovely  she  was,  and  I  thought  blushed  as  he  em- 
braced her.     The  Prince  could  not  keep  his  eyes  off  her: 


438  HENRY  ESMOND 

fte  quite  forgot  his  menial  part,  though  he  had  been  schooled 
to  it,  and  a  little  light  portmanteau  prepared  expressly  that 
he  should  earry  it.  He  pressed  forward  before  my  Lord 
Viscount.  'Twas  lucky  the  servants'  eyes  were  busy  in 
5  other  directions,  or  they  must  have  seen  that  this  was  no 
servant,  or  at  least  a  very  insolent  and  rude  one. 

Again  Colonel  Esmond  was  obliged  to  cry  out,  "Baptiste,'^ 
in  a  loud  imperious  voice,  "have  a  care  to  the  valise;  "  at 
which  hint  the  wilful  young  man  ground  his  teeth  with  some- 

10  thing  very  like  a  curse  between  them,  and  then  gave  a  brief 
look  of  anything  but  pleasure  to  his  Mentor.  Being  reminded, 
however,  he  shouldered  the  little  portmanteau,  and  carried  it 
up  the  stair,  Esmond  preceding  him,  and  a  servant  with 
lighted  tapers.     He  flung  down  his  burden  sulkily  in  the 

15  bed-chamber:  —  "A  Prince  that  will  wear  a  crown  must 
wear  a  mask,''  says  Mr.  Esmond,  in  French. 

"Ah,  peste  !  I  see  how  it  is,"  says  Monsieur  Baptiste, 
continuing  the  talk  in  French.  "The  Great  Serious  is 
seriously"  —  "alarmed  for  Monsieur  Baptiste,"  broke  in  the 

20  Colonel.  Esmond  neither  liked  the  tone  with  which  the 
Prince  spoke  of  the  ladies,  nor  the  eyes  with  which  he  re- 
garded them. 

The  bed-chamber  and  the  two  rooms  adjoining  it,  the  closet 
and  the  apartment  which  was  to  be  called  my  lord's  parlour, 

25  were  already  lighted  and  awaiting  their  occupier ;  and  the 
collation  laid  for  my  lord's  supper.  Lord  Castle  wood  and 
his  mother  and  sister  came  up  the  stair  a  minute  after- 
wards, and  so  soon  as  the  domesticks  had  quitted  the  apart- 
ment.   Castle  wood    and    Esmond    uncovered,    and    the    two 

30  ladies  went  down  on  their  knees  before  the  Prince,  who 
graciously  gave  a  hand  to  each.  He  looked  his  part  of 
Prinf^c  much  more  naturally  than  that  of  servant,  which  he 
had  just  been  trying,  and  raised  them  both  with  a  great  deal 
of  nobility,  as  well  .'is  kindness  in  his  air.     "Madam,"  says 

35  he,  "my  mother  will  thank  your  ladyship  for  your  hospitahty 
to  her  son;  for  you,  madam,"  turning  to  l^eatrix,  "I  cannot 
bear  to  see  so  much  beauty  in  such  a  posture.  You  will 
betray  Monsieur  liaptiste  if  you  kneel  to  him;  sure  'tis  his 
place  rather  to  kneel  to  you." 


I  HENRY   ESMOND  439 

A  light  shone  out  of  her  eyes;  a  gleam  bright  enough  to 
kindle  passion  in  any  breast.  There  were  times  when  this 
creature  was  so  handsome,  that  she  seemed,  as  it  were,  like 
Venus  revealing  herself  a  goddess  in  a  flash  of  brightness. 
vShe  appeared  so  now;  radiant,  and  with  eyes  bright  with  5 
a  wonderful  lustre.  A  pang,  as  of  rage  and  jealousy,  shot 
through  Esmond's  heart,  as  he  caught  the  look  she  gave  the 
Prince;  and  he  clenched  his  hand  involuntarily  and  looked 
across  to  Castlewood,  whose  eyes  answered  his  alarm-signal, 
and  were  also  on  the  alert.  The  Prince  gave  his  subjects  10 
an  audience  of  a  few  minutes,  and  then  the  two  ladies  and 
Colonel  Esmond  quitted  the  chamber.  Lady  Castlewood 
pressed  his  hand  as  they  descended  the  stair,  and  the  three 
went  down  to  the  lower  rooms,  where  they  waited  a  while  till  the 
travellers  above  should  be  refreshed  and  ready  for  their  meal.  15 

Esmond  looked  at  Beatrix,  blazing  with  her  jewels  on  her 
beautiful  neck.  "I  have  kept  my  word,"  says  he:  "And  I 
mine,''  says  Beatrix,  looking  down  on  the  diamonds. 

"Were  I  the  JMogul  Emperor,"  says  the  Colonel,  "you 
should  have  all  that  were  dug  out  of  Golconda.°"  ^        20 

"These  are  a  great  deal  too  good  for  me,"  says  Beatrix, 
dropping  her  head  on  her  beautiful  breast,  —  "so  are  you 
all,  all :"  and  when  she  looked  up  again,  as  she  did  in  a  mo- 
ment, and  after  a  sigh,  her  eyes,  as  they  gazed  at  her  cousin, 
wore  that  melancholy  and  inscrutable  look  which  'twas  al-  25 
ways  impossible  to  sound. 

When  the  time  came  for  the  supper,  of  which  we  were  ad- 
vertised by  a  knocking  overhead,  Colonel  Esmond  and  the 
two  ladies  went  to  the  upper  apartment,  where  the  Prince 
already  was,  and  by  his  side  the  young  Viscount,  of  exactly  30 
the  same  age,  shape,  and  with  features  not  dissimilar,  though 
Frank's  were  the  handsomer  of  the  two.  The  Prince  sat 
down,  and  bade  the  ladies  sit.  The  gentlemen  remained 
standing;  there  was,  indeed,  but  one  more  cover  laid  at  the 
table:  —  "Which  of  you  will  take  it?"  says  he.  35 

"The  head  of  our  house,"  says  Lady  Castlewood,  taking 
her  son's  hand,  and  looking  towards  Colonel  Esmond  with  a 
bow  and  a  great  tremor  of  the  voice;  "the  Marquis  of  Es- 
mond will  have   the   honour  of  serving  the   King." 


440  HENRY  ESMOND 

"I  shall  have  the  honour  of  waiting  on  his  Royal  Highness/ 
says  Colonel  Esmond,  filling  a  cup  of  wine,  and,  as  the  fashion 
of  that  day  was,  he  presented  it  to  the  King  on  his  knee. 
"I  drink  to  my  hostess  and  her  family,"  says  the  Prince, 
5  with  no  very  well  pleased  air ;   but  the  cloud  passed  imme- 
diately off  his  face,  and  he  talked  to  the  ladies  in  a  lively, 
rattling   strain,    quite   undisturbed   by  poor   Mr.   Esmond's 
yellow  countenance,  that  I  dare  say  looked  very  glum. 
When  the  time  came  to  take  leave,  Esmond  marched  home- 

lo  wards  to  his  lodgings,  and  met  Mr.  Addison  on  the  road  that 
night,  walking  to  a  cottage  he  had  at  Fulham,  the  moon 
shining  on  his  handsome,  serene  face:  —  "What  cheer, 
brother,'^  says  Addison,  laughing,  "I  thought  it  was  a  footpad 
advancing  in  the  dark,  and  behold  'tis  an  old  friend.     We 

15  may  shake  hands,  Colonel,  in  the  dark,  'tis  better  than 
fighting  by  daylight.  Why  should  we  quarrel,  because  I  am 
a  Whig  and  thou  art  a  Tory?  Turn  thy  steps  and  walk  with 
me  to  Fulham,  where  there  is  a  nightingale  still  singing  in 
the  garden,  and  a  cool  bottle  in  a  cave  I  know  of ;  you  shall 

20  drink  to  the  Pretender  if  you  like,  and  I  will  drink  my  liquor 
my  own  way :  I  have  had  enough  of  good  liquor  ?  —  no, 
never !  There  is  no  such  word  as  enough,  as  a  stopper  for 
good  wine.  Thou  wilt  not  come?  Come  any  day,  come 
soon.     You  know  I  remember  Simois  and  the  Sigcia  telly s° 

25  and  the  proolia  mixta  mero,  mixta  mero,"  he  repeated,  with 
ever  so  slight  a  touch  of  mcrum  in  his  \o\qg,  and  walked  bactk 
a  little  way  on  the  road  with  Esmond,  bidding  the  other 
rememljer  he  was  always  his  friend,  and  indebted  to  him  for 
his  aid  in  the  "Campaign"  poem.     And  very  likely  Mr.  Under 

30  Secretaiy°  would  have  stopped  in  and  taken  t'other  bottle 
at  the  (yolonel's  lodging,  had  the  latter  invited  him,  but 
Esmond's  mood  was  notie  of  the  gayest,  and  he  bade  his  friend 
an  inh()Sj)itable  good-night  at  the  door. 

"I  hav(5  done  the  deed,"  thought  he,  sleepless,  and  looking 

35  out  into  the  night;  "he  is  here,  and  I  have  brought  him;  he 
and  Heatiix  are  sleeping  under  the  same  roof  now.  Whom 
did  I  mean  to  s(;rve  in  bringing  him  ?  Was  it  the  Prince,  was 
it  Ileiny  JOsmond  ?  Had  I  not  best  have  joined  the  manly 
creed  of  Addison  yonder,  that  scouts  the  okl  doctrine  of  right 


/  HENRY  ESMOND  441 

divine,  that  boldly  declares  that  Parliament  and  people  con- 
secrate the  Sovereign,  not  bishops  nor  genealogies,  nor  oils, 
nor  coronations."  The  eager  gaze  of  the  young  Prince 
haunted  Esmond  and  pursued  him.  The  Prince's  figure 
appeared  before  him  in  his  feverish  dreams  many  times  that  5 
night.  He  wished  the  deed  undone,  for  which  he  had  la- 
boured so.  He  was  not  the  first  that  has  regretted  his  own 
act,  or  brought  about  his  own  undoing.  Undoing?  Should 
he  write  that  word  in  his  late  3-ears  ?  Xo,  on  his  knees  before 
Heaven,  rather  be  thankful  for  what  then  he  deemed  his  mis-  ic 
fortune,  and  which  hath  caused  the  whole  subsequent  hap- 
piness of  his  life. 

Esmond's  man,  honest  John  Lockwood,  had  served  his 
master  and  the  family  all  his  life,  and  the  Colonel  knew  that 
he  could  answer  for  John's  fidelity  as  for  his  own.  John  15 
returned  with  the  horses  from  Rochester  betimes  the  next 
morning,  and  the  Colonel  gave  him  to  understand  that  on 
going  to  Kensington,  where  he  was  free  of  the  servants'  hall, 
and,  indeed,  courting  Mrs.  Beatrix's  maid,  he  was  to  ask 
no  questions,  and  betray  no  surprise,  but  to  vouch  stoutly  20 
that  the  young  gentleman  he  should  see  in  a  red  coat  there 
was  my  Lord  Viscount  Castlewood,  and  that  his  attendant 
in  grey  was  Monsieur  Baptiste  the  Frenchman.  He  was  to 
tell  his  friends  in  the  kitchen  such  stories  as  he  remembered 
of  my  Lord  Viscount's  youth  at  Castlewood :  what  a  wild  25 
boy  he  was ;  how  he  used  to  drill  Jack  and  cane  him,  before 
ever  he  was  a  soldier,  everythihg,  in  fine,  he  knew  respecting 
my  Lord  Viscount's  early  daj's.  Jack's  ideas  of  painting 
had  not  been  much  cultivated  during  his  residence  in  Flanders 
with  his  master;  and  before  my  young  lord's  return,  he  had  30 
been  easily  got  to  believe  that  the  picture  brought  over  from 
Paris,  and  now  hanging  in  Lady  Castlewood 's  drawing-room, 
was  a  perfect  likeness  of  her  son  the  young  lord.  And  the 
domesticks  having  all  seen  the  picture  many  times,  and 
catching  but  a  momentary  imperfect  ghmpse  of  the  two  35 
strangers  on  the  night  of  their  arrival,  never  had  a  reason  to 
doubt  the  fidelity  of  the  portrait ;  and  next  day,  when  they 
saw  the  original  of  the  piece  habited  exactly  as  he  was 
represented  in  the  painting,  with  the  same  perriwig,  ribbons, 


442  HENRY  ESMOND 

and  uniform  of  the  Guard,  quite  naturally  addressed  the 
gentleman  as  my  Lord  Castle  wood,  my  Lady  Viscountess's 
son. 

The  secretary  of  the  night  previous,  was  now  the  Viscount ; 

5  the  Viscount  wore  the  secretary's  grey  frock;  and  John 
Lockwood  was  instructed  to  hint  to  the  world  below  stairs 
that  my  lord  being  a  Papist,  and  very  devout  in  that  religion, 
his  attendant  might  be  no  other  than  his  chaplain  from 
Bruxelles;   hence,  if  he  took  his  meals  in  my  lord's  company 

10  there  was  httle  reason  for  surprise.  Frank  was  further 
cautioned  to  speak  English  with  a  foreign  accent,  which  task 
he  performed  indifferently  well,  and  this  caution  was  the 
more  necessary  because  the  Prince  himself  scarce  spoke  our 
language  like  a  native  of  the  island ;    and  John  Lockwood 

15  laughed  with  the  folks  below  stairs  at  the  manner  in  which 
my  lord,  after  five  years  abroad,  sometimes  forgot  his  own 
tongue  and  spoke  it  like  a  Frenchman  :  ''I  warrant,"  savs  he, 
"that  with  the  English  beef  and  beer,  his  lordship  will  soon 
get  back  the  proper  use  of  his  mouth;"  and  to  do  his  new 

20  lordship  justice,  he  took  to  beer  and  beef  very  kindly. 

The  Prince  drank  so  much,  and  was  so  loud  and  imprudent 
in  his  talk  after  his  drink,  that  Esmond  often  trembled  for 
him.  His  meals  were  served  as  much  as  possible  in  his  own 
chamber,    thoi'gh    frequently   he    made    his   appearance   in 

25  Lady  Castlewood's  parlour  and  drawing-room,  calling  Beatrix 
"sister,"  and  her  ladyship  "mother,"  or  "madam,"  before 
the  servants.  And  choosing  to  act  entirely  up  to  the  part  of 
brother  and  son,  the  Prince  sometimes  saluted  Mrs.  Beatrix 
and  Lady  Castlewood  with  a  freedom  which  his  secretary  did 

30  not  like,  and  which,  for  his  part,  set  Colonel  Esmond  tearing 
with  rage. 

The  guests  had  not  been  three  days  in  the  house  when 
poor  Jack  Lockwood  came  with  a  rueful  countenance  to  his 
master,  and  said:    "My  lord,  that  is  —  the  gentleman,  has 

35  been  tampering  with  Mrs.  Lucy"  (Jack's  sweetheart),  "and 
giv(Mi  her  guineas  and  a  kiss."  I  fear  that  Colonel  Esmond's 
mind  was  rather  relieved,  than  otherwise,  when  he  found  that 
the  atu'illary  beauty  was  the  one  whom  the  Prince  had  se- 
lected.    His  royal  tastes  were  known  to  lie  that  way,  and 


/ 


HENRY   ESMOND  443 


continued  so  in  after  life.  The  heir  of  one  of  the  greatest 
names,  of  the  greatest  kingdoms,  and  of  the  greatest  misfor- 
tunes in  Europe,  was  often  content  to  lay  the  dignity  of  his 
birth  and  grief  at  the  wooden  shoes°  of  a  French  chamber- 
maid, and  to  repent  afterwards  (for  he  was  very  devout)  in  5 
ashes  taken  from  the  dust-pan.  'Tis  for  mortals  such  as 
these  that  nations  suffer,  that  parties  struggle,  that  warriors 
fight  and  bleed.  A  year  afterwards  gallant  heads  were  fall- 
ing, and  Nithsdale°  in  escape,  and  Derwentw^ater°  on  the 
scaffold,  whilst  the  heedless  ingrate,  for  whom  they  risked  10 
and  lost  all,  was  tippling  with  his  seragUo  of  mistresses  in 
his  'petite  maisofi°  of  Chaillot. 

Blushing  to  be  forced  to  bear  such  an  errand,  E.jmond  had 
to  go  to  the  Prince  and  w^arn  him  that  the  girl,  whom  his 
Highness  was  bribing,  was  John  Lockwood's  sweetheart,  15 
an  honest  resolute  man  who  had  served  in  six  campaigns, 
and  feared  nothing,  and  who  knew  that  the  person,  calling 
himself  Lord  Castlewood,  was  not  his  young  master :  and 
the  Colonel  besought  the  Prince  to  consider,  what  the  effect 
of  a  single  man's  jealousy  might  be,  and  to  think  of  other  20 
designs  he  had  in  hand,  more  important  than  the  seduction 
of  a  waiting-maid,  and  the  humiliation  of  a  brave  man. 

Ten  times,  perhaps,  in  the  course  of  as  many  days,  Mr. 
Esmond  had  to  warn  the  royal  young  adventurer  of  some 
imprudence  or  some  freedom.  He  received  these  remon-  25 
strances  very  testily,  save  perhaps  in  this  affair  of  poor  Lock- 
wood's,  when  he  deigned  to  burst  out  a-laughing,  and  said, 
"What!  the  soubrette  has  peached  to  the  amoureux,  and 
Crispin °  is  angry,  and  Crispin  has  served,  and  Crispin  has 
been  a  corporal,  has  he  ?  Tell  him  we  will  reward  his  valour  30 
with  a  pair  of  colours,  and  recompense  his  fidelity." 

Colonel  Esmond  ventured  to  utter  some  other  words  of 
entreaty,  but  the  Prince,  stamping  imperiously,  cried  out, 
"Assez,°  milord:  je  m'ennuye  a  la  preche;  I  am  not  come 
to  London  to  go  to  the  sermon."  And  he  complained  after-  35 
wards  to  Castlewood  that  "le  petit  jaune,°  le  noir  Colonel, 
le  Marquis  Misanthrope"  (by  which  facetious  names  his 
Royal  Highness  was  pleased  to  designate  Colonel  Esmond), 
"fatigued  him  \\'ith  his  grand  airs  and  virtuous  homilies." 


444  HENRY   ESMOND 

The  Bishop  of  Rochester,  and  other  gentlemen  engaged  iiv 
the  transaction  which  had  brought  the  Prince  over,  waited 
upon  his  Royal  Highness,  constantly  asking  for  my  Lord 
Castlewood  on  their  arrival  at  Kensington,  and  being  openly 
5  conducted  to  his  Royal  Highness  in  that  character,  who 
received  them  either  in  my  ladj^'s  drawing-room  below,  or 
above  in  his  own  apartment;  and  all  implored  him  to  quit 
the  house  as  little  as  possible,  and  to  wait  there  till  the  signal 
should  be  given  for  him  to  appear.     The  ladies  entertained 

:o  him  at  cards,  over  which  amusement  he  spent  many  hours 
in  each  day  and  night.  He  passed  many  hours  more  in 
drinking,  during  which  time  he  would  rattle  and  talk  very 
agreeably,  and  especially  if  the  Colonel  was  absent,  whose 
presence   alwa3''s   seemed   to    frighten   him;     and   the   poor 

15  "Colonel  Noir"  took  that  hint  as  a  command  accordingly, 
and  seldom  intruded  his  black  face  upon  the  convivial  hours 
of  this  august  young  prisoner.  Except  for  those  few  persons 
of  whom  the  porter  had  the  list.  Lord  Castlewood  was  denied 
to  all  friends  of  the  house  who  waited  on  his  lordship.     The 

20  wound  he  had  received  had  broke  out  again  from  his  journey 
on  horseback,  so  the  world  and  the  domesticks  were  informed. 

And  Doctor  A ,^  his  physician  (I  shall  not  mention  his 

name,  but  he  was  physician  to  the  Queen,  of  the  Scots  nation, 
and  a  man  remarkable  for  his  benevolence  as  well  as  his  wit), 

25  gave  orders  that  he  should  be  kept  perfectly  quiet  until  the 
wound  should  heal.  With  this  gentleman,  who  was  one  of 
the  most  active  and  influential  of  our  party,  and  the  others 
before  spoken  of,  the  whole  secret  lay ;  and  it  was  kept  with 
so  much  faithfulness,  and  the  story  we  told  so  simple  and 

3)  natural,  that  there  was  no  likelihood  of  a  discovery  except 
irom  the  im[)rudence  of  the  Prince  himself,  and  an  adven- 
turous levity  that  we  had  the  greatest  difficulty  to  controul. 
As  for  Lady  Castlewood,  although  she  scrarce  spoke  a  word, 
'twas  easy  to  gather  from  her  d(uneanour,  and  one  or  two 

55  hints  she  dropped,  how  deep  her  mortification  was  at  finding 
the  hero  whom  she  had  chosen  to  worship  all  her  life  (an(l 
whose  restoration  had  formed  almost  the  most  sacred  part 

'  There  can  be  very  little  doubt,  that  the  Doctor  mentioned  by  my 
dear  father,  was  the  famous  Dr.  Arbuthnot.    -  R.  E.  W. 


HENRY   ESMOND  445 

of  her  prayers)  no  more  than  a  man,  and  not  a  good  one. 
She  thought  misfortune  might  have  chastened  him ;  but 
that  instructress  had  rather  rendered  him  callous  than  humble. 
His  devotion,  which  was  quite  real,  kept  him  from  no  sin  he 
had  a  mind  to.  His  talk  showed  good  humour,  gaiety,  even  5 
wit  enough ;  but  there  was  a  levity  in  his  acts  and  words 
that  he  had  brought  from  among  those  libertine  devotees 
with  whom  he  had  been  bred,  and  that  shocked  the  sim- 
phcity  and  purity  of  the  Englisii  lady,  whose  guest  he  was. 
Esmond  spoke  his  mind  to  Beatrix  pretty  frecl}^  about  the  10 
Prince,  getting  her  brother  too  to  put  in  a  word  of  warning. 
Beatrix  was  entirely  of  their  opinion;  she  thought  he  was 
very  light,  very  light  and  reckless :  she  could  not  even  see 
the  good  looks  Colonel  Esmond  had  spoken  of.  The  Prince 
had  bad  teeth,  and  a  decided  squint.  How  could  we  say  he  15 
did  not  squint  ?  His  eyes  were  fine,  but  there  was  certainly 
a  cast  in  them.  She  ralHed  him  at  table  with  wonderful  wit ; 
she  spoke  of  him  invariably  as  of  a  mere  boy ;  she  was  more 
fond  of  Esmond  than  ever,  praised  him  to  her  brother,  praised 
him  to  the  Prince,  when  his  Royal  Highness  was  pleased  to  20 
sneer  at  the  Colonel,  and  warmly  espoused  his  cause:  "And 
if  your  i\Iajest;f  does  not  give  him  the  Garter  his  father  had, 
when  the  Marquis  of  Esmond  comes  to  your  Majesty's  court, 
I  will  hang  myself  in  my  own  garters,  or  will  cry  my  eyes  out." 
"Rather  than  lose  those,"  says  the  Prince,  "he  shall  be  made  25 
Archbishop  and  Colonel  of  the  Guard  "  (it  was  Frank  Castle- 
wood  who  told  me  of  this  conversation  over  their  supper). 

"Yes,"  cries  she,  with  one  of  her  laughs,  I  fancy  I  hear  it 
now.     Thirty  years  afterwards  I  hear  that  delightful  musick ; 
"yes,  he  shall  be  Archbishop  of  Esmond  and  Marquis  cf  30 
Canterbury."'' 

"And   what   will   your   ladyship   be?"   says   the    Prince; 
"you  have  but  to  choose  your  place." 

"I,"  says  Beatrix,   "will  be  mother  of  the  maids  to  the 
Queen  of  his  ^lajesty  King  James  the  Third  —  Y\\e  le  Roy  ! "  35 
and  she  made  him  a  great  curtsey,  and  drank  a  part  of  a  glass 
of  wine  in  his  honour. 

"The  Prince  seized  hold  of  the  glass  and  drank  the  last 
drop  of  it,"  Castlewood  said,  "and  my  mother,  looking  very 


446  HENRY    ESMOND 

anxious,  rose  up  and  asked  leave  to  retire.  But  that  Trix  is 
my  mother's  daughter,  Harry,"  Frank  continued,  "I  don't 
know  what  a  horrid  fear  I  should  have  of  her.  I  wish  —  I 
wish  this  business  were  over.  You  are  older  than  I  am,  and 
5  wiser,  and  better,  and  I  owe  you  everything,  and  would 
die  for  you  —  before  George  I  would ;  but  I  wish  the  end  of 
this  were  come." 

Neither  of  us  very  likely  passed  a  tranquil  night ;  horrible 
doubts  and  torments  racked  Esmond's  soul ;    'twas  a  scheme 

lo  of  personal  ambition,  a  daring  stroke  for  a  selfish  end,  —  he 
knew  it.  What  cared  he,  in  his  heart,  who  was  King? 
Were  not  his  very  sympathies  and  secret  convictions  on  the 
other  side  —  on  the  side  of  People,  Parliament,  Freedom  ? 
And  here  was  he,  engaged  for  a  Prince  that  had  scarce  heard 

15  the  word  liberty;  that  priests  and  women,  tyrants  by  nature 
both,  made  a  tool  of.  The  Misanthrope  was  in  no  better 
humour  after  hearing  that  story,  and  his  grim  face  more 
black  and  yellow  than  ever. 


CHAPTER   X 

WE  ENTERTAIN  A  VERY  DISTINGUISHED  GUEST  AT  KENSINGTON 

Should  an}^  clue  be  found  to  the  dark  intrigues  at  the 

20  latter  end  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  or  any  historian  be  inclined 

to  follow  it,  'twill  be  discovered,  I  have  little  doubt,  that  not 

one  of  the  great  personages  about  the  Queen  had  a  defined 

schcm3  of  policy,    independent  of  that  private  and  selfish 

interest,  which  each  was  bent  on  pursuing;   St.  John  was  for 

25  St.  John,  and  Harley  for  Oxford,  °  and  Marlborough  for  John 

Churchill,    always;    and   according  as  they  could   get  help 

from  ut.  Germains  or  Hainiover,  they  sent  over  proffers  of 

allegiance  to  the  Princes  there,  or  betrayed  one  to  the  other : 

one  cause,  or  one  sovereign,  was  as  good  as  another  to  them, 

30  so  that  they  could  hold  the  best  place  under  him  ;    and  like 

Lockit    and    Peachum,  the  Newgate  chiefs    in    the    Rogues' 

Opera°   Mr.   Gay  wrote    afterwards,   had  each   in   his  hand 

documents   and   proofs   of   treason   which   would   hang  the 


HENRY    ESMOND  447 

other,  only  he  did  not  dare  to  use  the  weapon,  for  fear  of  that 
one  which  his  neighbour  also  carried  in  his  pocket.  Think 
of  the  great  Marlborough,  the  greatest  subject  in  all  the  world, 
a  conqueror  of  princes,  that  had  marched  victorious  over 
(Jermany,  Flanders,  and  France,  that  had  given  the  law  to  5 
sovereign:;  abroad,  and  been  worshipped  as  a  divinity  at 
home,  forced  to  sneak  out  of  England,  —  his  credit,  honours, 
places,  all  taken  from  him;  his  friends  in  the  army  broke 
and  ruined;  and  flying  before  Harley,  as  abject  and  power- 
less as  a  poor  debtor  before  a  bailiff  with  a  writ.  A  paper,  i- 
of  which  Harley  got  possession,  and  showing  beyond  doubt 
that  the  Duke  was  engaged  with  the  Stuart  family,  was  tlie 
weapon  with  which  the  Treasurer  drove  Marlborough  out  of 
the  kingdom.  He  fled  to  Antwerp,  and  began  intriguing  in- 
stantly on  the  other  side,  and  came  back  to  England,  as  all  15 
know,  a  Whig  and  a  Hannoverian. 

Though  the  Treasurer °  turned  out  of  the  army  and  office 
every  man,  military  or  qiy\\,  known  to  be  the  Duke's  friend, 
and  gave  the  vacant  posts  among  the  Tory  party;   he,  too, 
was  playing  the  doulDle   game  between  Hannover  and  St.  20 
Germains,  awaiting  the  expected  catastrophe  of  the  Queen's 
death  to  be  Master  of  the  State,  and  offer  it  to  either  family 
that  should  bribe  him  best,  or  that  the  nation  should  declare 
for.     Whichever  the  King  was,  Harley 's  object  was  to  reign 
over  him ;   and  to  this  end  he  sup{)lanted  the  former  famous  25 
favourite,  decried  the  actions  of  the  war  which  had  made 
Marlborough's  name  illustrious,  and  disdained  no  more  than 
the  great  fallen  competitor  of  his,  the  meanest  arts,  flatteries, 
intimidations,  that  would  secure  his  power.     If  the  greatest 
satirist  the  world  ever  hath  seen,°  had  ^vTit  against  Harley,  3c 
and  not  for  him,  what  a  history  had  he  left  behind  of  the 
last  years  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  !     But  Swift,  that  scorned 
all  mankind,  and  himself  not  the  least  of  all,  had  this  merit 
of  a  faithful  partisan,  that  he  loved  those  chiefs  who  treated 
him  well,  and  stuck  by  Harley  bravely  in  his  fall,  as  he  gallantly  21 
had  supported  him  in  his  better  fortune. 

Incomparably  more  brilliant,  more  splendid,  eloquent, 
accomplished,  than  his  rival,  the  great  St.  John  could  be 
as  selfish  as  Oxford  was,  and  could  act  the  double  part  as 


448  HENRY   ESMOND 

skilfully  as  ambidextrous  Churchill.  He  whose  talk  was 
always  of  liberty,  no  more  shrunk  from  using  persecution 
and  the  pillory  against  his  opponents,  than  if  he  had  been 
at  Lisbon  and  Grand  Inquisitor. °  This  lofty  patriot  was 
5  on  his  knees  at  Hannover  and  St.  Germains  too ;  notoriously 
of  no  religion,  he  toasted  Church  and  Queen  as  boldly  as  the 
stupid  Sacheverel,°  whom  he  used  and  laughed  at;  and  to 
serve  his  turn,  and  to  overthrow  his  enemy,  he  could  intrigue, 
coax,  bully,  wheedle,  fawn  on  the  Court  favourite  and  creep 

10  up  the  back-stair  as  silently  as  Oxford  who  supplanted 
Marlborough,  and  whom  he  himself  supplanted.  The  crash 
of  my  Lord  Oxford  happened  at  this  very  time,  whereat  my 
history  is  now  arrived.  He  was  come  to  the  very  last  days 
of  his  power,   and  the  agent   whom  he  employed  to  over- 

15  throw  the  conqueror  of  Blenheim,  was  now  engaged  to  upset 
the  conqueror's  conqueror,  and  hand  over  the  staff  of  govern- 
ment to  Bolingbroke,  who  had  been  panting  to  hold  it. 

In  expectation  of  the  stroke  that  was  now  preparing,  the 
Irish    regiments    in    the    French    service    were    all    brought 

20  round  about  Boulogne °  in  Picardy,  to  pass  over  if  need  were, 
with  the  Duke  of  Berwick ;  the  soldiers  of  France  no  longer, 
but  subjects  of  James  the  Third  of  England  and  Ireland 
King.  The  fidelity  of  the  great  mass  of  the  Scots  (though 
a  most  active,  resolute,  and  gallant  Whig  party,  admirably 

25  and  energetically  ordered  and  disciplined,  was  known  to  be 
in  Scotland  too)  was  notoriously  unshaken  in  their  King.° 
A  very  great  body  of  Tory  clergy,  nobility,  and  gentry, 
were  publick  partisans  of  the  exiled  Prince ;  and  the  indiffcr- 
ents  might  be  counted  on  to  cry  King  Cieorge  or  King  James, 

30  according  as  either  should  prevail.  The  Queen,  especially 
in  her  latter  days,  inclined  towards  her  own  family.  The 
Prince  was  lying  a(;tually  in  London,  within  a  stone's-cast 
of  his  sister's  palace;  the  first  Minister  toppling  to  his  fall, 
and  so  tottering  that  the  weakest  i)ush  of  a  woman's  finger 

35  would  send  him  down  ;  and  as  for  Bolingbroke,  his  successor, 
we  know  on  whose  side  his  power  and  his  si)lendid  eloquence 
would  be  on  th(^  day  when  the  Queen  should  appear  openly 
before  her  ('ounfil  and  say  :  —  "This,  my  lords,  is  my  brother, 
here  is  my  father's  heir,  and  mine  after  me.^' 


HENRY   ESMOND  449 

/ 

'  During  the  whole  of  the  previous  year  the  Queen  had  had 
many  and  ij-epeated  fits  of  sickness,  fever  and  lethargy,  and 
her  death  had  been  constantly  looked  for  by  all  her  attend- 
ants. The  Elector  of  Hannover  had  wished  to  send  his  son, 
the  Duke  of  Cambridge, °  —  to  pay  his  court  to  his  cousin  the  5 
Queen,  the  Elector  said ;  —  in  truth,  to  be  on  the  spot  when 
death  should  close  her  career.  Frightened  perhaps  to  have 
such  a  memento  mori  under  her  royal  eyes,  her  Majesty  had 
angrily  forbidden  the  young  Prince's  coming  into  England. 
Either  she  desired  to  keep  the  chances  for  her  brother  open  10 
yet ;  or  the  people  about  her  did  not  wish  to  close  with  the 
Whig  candidate  till  they  could  make  terms  with  him.  The 
quarrels  of  her  Ministers  before  her  face  at  the  Council 
board,  the  pricks  of  conscience  very  Hkely,  the  importunities 
of  her  Ministers,  and  constant  turmoil  and  agitation  round  15 
about  her,  had  weakened  and  irritated  the  Princess  ex- 
tremely ;  her  strength  was  giving  way  under  these  continual 
trials  of  her  temper,  and  from  clay  to  day  it  was  expected 
she  must  come  to  a  speedy  end  of  them.  Just  before  Viscount 
Castlewood  and  his  companion  came  from  France,  her  Majesty  20 
was  taken  ill.  The  St.  Anthony's  fire°  broke  out  on  the 
Royal  legs;  there  was  no  hurry  for  the  presentation  of  the 
young  lord  at  Court,  or  that  person  who  should  appear 
under  his  name ;  and  my  Lord  Viscount's  wound  breaking 
out  opportunely,  he  was  kept  conveniently  in  his  chamber  25 
until  such  time  as  his  physician  should  allow  him  to  bend  his 
knee  before  the  Queen.  At  the  commencement  of  July, 
that  influential  lady,  with  whom  it  has  been  mentioned  that 
cur  party  had  relations,  came  frequently  to  visit  her  young 
friend,  the  Maid  of  Honour,  at  Kensington,  and  my  Lord  30 
Viscount  (the  real  or  supposititious),  who  was  an  invalid  at 
Lady  Castlewood 's  house. 

On  the  27th  day  of  July,  the  lady  in  question,  who  held 
the  most  intimate  post  about  the  Queen,  came  in  her  chair 
from  the  Palace  hard  by,  bringing  to  the  little  party  in  35 
Kensington  Square  intelligence  of  the  very  highest  impor- 
tance. The  final  blow  had  been  struck,  and  my  Lord  of 
Oxford  and  Mortimer  was  no  longer  Treasurer.  The  staff 
was  as    yet    given    to    no    successor,    though    my    Lord 


450  HENRY   ESMOND 

Bolingbroke  would  undoubtedly  be  the  man.  And  now 
the  time  was  come,  the  Queen's  Abigail  said :  and  now 
my  Lord  Castle  wood  ought  to  be  presented  to  the  Sov- 
ereign. 
5  After  that  scene  which  Lord  Castlewood  witnessed  and 
described  to  his  cousin,  who  passed  such  a  miserable  night  of 
mortification  and  jealousy  as  he  thought  over  the  transaction, 
no  doubt  the  three  persons  who  were  set  by  nature  as  pro- 
tectors over  Beatrix  came  to  the  same  conclusion,  that  she 

10  must  be  removed  from  the  presence  of  a  man  whose  desires 
towards  her  were  expressed  only  too  clearly;  and  who  was 
no  more  scrupulous  in  seeking  to  gratify  them  than  his  father 
had  been  before  him.  I  suppose  Esmond's  mistress,  her 
son,  and  the  Colonel  himself,  had  been  all  secretly  debating 

15  this  matter  in  their  minds,  for  when  Frank  broke  out,  in  his 
blunt  way,  with:  —  ''I  think  Beatrix  had  best  be  anywhere 
but  here,"  —  Lady  Castlewood  said:  —  "I  thank  you, 
Frank,  I  have  thought  so  too;"  and  Mr.  Esmond,' though  he 
only  remarked  that  it  was  not  for  him  to  speak,  showed 

20  plainly  by  the  delight  on  his  countenance,  how  very  agreeable 
that  proposal  was  to  him. 

"One  sees  that  you  think  with  us,  Henry,"  says  the 
Viscountess  with  ever  so  little  of  sarcasm  in  her  tone : 
"Beatrix  is  best  out  of  this  house  whilst  we  have  our  guest  in 

25  it,  and  as  soon  as  this  morning's  business  is  done,  she  ought 
to  quit  London." 

"What  morning's  business  ?"  asked  Colonel  Esmond,  not 
knowing  what  had  been  arranged,  though  in  fact  the  stroke 
next  in  importance  to  that  of  bringing  the  Prince,  and  of 

30  having  him  acknowledged  by  the  Queen,  was  now  being 
performed  at  the  very  moment  we  three  were  conversing 
together. 

Tlie  Court  lady  with  whom  our  plan  was  concerted,  and 
who  was  a  cliic^f  agent  in  it,  the  Court  physician,  and  the 

35  15ishof^  of  llochester,  who  were  the  other  two  most  active 
participators  in  our  plan,  had  held  many  councils  in  our 
hoiis(i  at  Kensington  and  elsewhere,  as  to  the  means  best 
to  be  adoi)ted  for  presenting  our  young  adventurer  to  his 
»i.ster  the  Queen.     The  simple  and  easy  plan  proposed  by 


HENRY  ESMOND  451 

Colonel  Esmond  had  been  agreed  to  by  all  parties,  which 
was  that  on  some  rather  private  day  when  there  were -not 
many  persons  about  the  Court,  the  Prince  should  appear 
there  as  my  Lord  Castlewood,  should  be  greeted  by  his 
sister-in-waiting,  and  led  by  that  Other  Lady  into  the  closet  5 
of  the  Queen.  And  according  to  her  Majesty's  health  or 
'humour,  and  the  circumstances  that  might  arise  during  the 
interview,  it  was  to  be  left  to  the  discretion  of  those  present 
at  it,  and  to  the  Prince  himself,  whether  he  should  declare 
that  it  w^as  the  Queen's  own  brother,  or  the  brother  of  Beatrix  ic 
Esmond,  who  kissed  her  Royal  hand.  And  this  plan  being 
determined  on,  we  w^ere  all  waiting  in  very  much  anxiety 
for  the  day  and  signal  of  execution. 

Two  mornings  after  that  supper,  it  being  the  27th  day  of 
July,  the  Bishop  of  Rochester  breakfasting  with  Lady  15 
Castlewood  and  her  family,  and  the  meal  scarce  over.  Doctor 
A.'s  coach  drove  up  to  our  house  at  Kensington,  and  the 
Doctor  appeared  amongst  the  party  there,  enlivening  a 
rather  gloomy  company,  for  the  mother  and  daughter  had  had 
words  in  the  morning  in  respect  to  the  transactions  of  that  20 
supper  and  other  adventures  perhaps,  and  on  the  day  suc- 
ceeding. Beatrix's  haughty  spirit  brooked  remonstrances 
from  no  superior,  much  less  from  her  mother,  the  gentlest  of 
creatures,  whom  the  girl  commanded  rather  than  obeyed. 
And  feeling  she  was  wrong,  and  that  by  a  thousand  cocjuetries  25 
(which  she  could  no  more  help  exercising  on  every  man  that 
came  near  her,  than  the  sun  can  help  shining  on  great  and 
small)  she  had  provoked  the  Prince's  dangerous  admiration, 
and  allured  him  to  the  expression  of  it,  she  was  only  the 
more  wilful  and  imperious,  the  more  she  felt  her  error.  30 

To  this  party,  the  Prince  being  served  with  chocolate  in 
his  bed-chamber  where  he  lay  late  sleeping  away  the  fumes 
of  his  wine,  the  Doctor  came,  and  by  the  urgent  and  startling 
nature  of  his  news  dissipated  instantly  that  private  and  minor 
unpleasantry  under  which  the  family  of  Castlewood  was  3; 
labouring. 

He  asked  for  the  Guest ;  the  Guest  was  above  in  his  own 
apartment :  he  bade  Monsieur  Baptiste  go  up  to  his  master 
instantly,  and  requested  that  My  Lord  Viscount  Castlewood 


452  HENRY   ESMOND 

would  straightway  put  his  uniform  on,  and  come  away  \i\ 
the  Doctor's  coach  now  at  the  door. 

He  then  informed  Madam  Beatrix  what  her  part  of  the 
comedy  was  to  be:  —  "In  half  an  hour/'  says  he,  ''her 
5  Majesty  and  her  favourite  lady  will  take  the  air  in  the  Cedar- 
walk  behind  the  New  Banqueting-house.  Her  Majesty  will 
be  drawn  in  a  garden-chair.  Madam  Beatrix  Esmond  and 
her  brother  my  Lord  Viscount  Castlewood  will  be  walking  in 
the  private  garden  (here  is  Lady  Masham's  key),  and  will 

10  come  unawares  upon  the  Royal  party.  The  man  that  draws 
the  chair  will  retire,  and  leave  the  Queen,  the  favourite,  and 
the  Maid  of  Honour,  and  her  brother  together ;  Mrs.  Beatrix 
will  present  her  brother,  and  then !  —  and  then,  my  Lord 
Bishop  will  pray  for  the  result  of  the  interview,   and  his 

15  Scots  clerk  will  say  Amen !  Quick,  piit  on  your  hood, 
Madam  Beatrix;  why  doth  not  his  Majesty  come  down? 
Such  another  chance  may  not  present  itself  for  months 
again.'' 

The  Prince  was  late  and  lazy,  and  indeed  had  all  but  lost 

20  that  chance  through  his  indolence.  The  Queen  was  actually 
about  to  leave  the  garden  just  when  the  party  reached  it; 
the  Doctor,  the  Bishop,  the  Maid  of  Honour  and  her  Brother 
went  off  together  in  the  physician's  coach,  and  had  been 
gone  half  an  hour  when  Colonel  Esmond  came  to  Kensington 

25  Square. 

The  news  of  this  errand,  on  which  Beatrix  was  gone,  of 
course  for  a  moment  put  all  thoughts  of  private  jealousy 
out  of  Colonel  Esmond's  head.  Li  half  an  hour  more  tha 
coach  returned  ;   the  Bishop  descended  from  it  first,  and  gave 

30  his  arm  to  Beatrix,  who  now  came  out.  His  lordship  went 
back  into  the  carriage  again,  and  the  Maid  of  Honour  entered 
the  house  alone.  We  were  all  gazing  at  her  from  the  upper 
window,  trying  to  read  from  her  countenance  the  result  of 
the  interview  from  which  she  had  just  come. 

35  She  came  into  the  drawing-room  in  a  great  tremor  and 
\'ery  pale ;  she  asked  for  a  glass  of  water  as  her  mother  went 
to  meet  her,  and  after  drinking  that  and  putting  off  her  hood, 
she  began  to  speak :  —  "We  may  all  hope  for  the  best,"  says 
she;   "it  has  cost  the  Queen  a  fit.     Her  Majesty  was  in  her 


HENRY   ESMOND  463 

chair,  in  the  Cedar-walk,  accompanied  only  by  Lady , 

when  we  entered  by  the  pri\'ate  wicket  from  the  west  side  of 
the  garden,  and  turned  towards  her,  the  Doctor  following  us. 
They  waited  in  a  side-walk  hidden  by  the  shrubs,  as  we 
advanced  towards  the  chair,  jVIy  heart  throbbed  so  I  scarce  5 
could  speak;  but  my  Prince  whispered,  X'ourage,  Beatrix;' 
and  marched  on  with  a  steady  step.  His  face  was  a  little 
flushed,  but  he  was  not  afraid  of  the  danger.  He  who  fought 
so  bravely  at  Malplaquet  fears  nothing."  Esmond  and 
Castlewood  looked  at  each  other,  at  this  compliment,  neither  10 
hking  the  sound  of  it. 

"The  Prince  uncovered,"  Beatrix  continued,  "and  I  saw 
the  Queen  turning  round  to  Lady  Masham  as  if  asking  who 
these  two  were.  Her  Majesty  looked  very  pale  and  ill,  and 
then  flushed  up ;  the  favourite  made  us  a  signal  to  advance,  15 
and  I  went  up  leading  my  Prince  by  the  hand,  quite  close 
to  the  chair  :  'your  Majesty  will  give  my  Lord  Viscount  your 
hand  to  kiss,'  says  her  lady,  and  the  Queen  put  out  her 
hand,  which  the  Prince  kissed,  kneeling  on  his  knee,  he  who 
should  kneel  to  no  mortal  man  or  woman.  20 

"'You  have  been  long  from  England,  my  lord,'  says  the 
Queen:  'why  were  you  not  here  to  give  a  ho^ne  to  3^our 
mother  and  sister?' 

"'I  am  come.  Madam,  to  stay  now,  if  the  Queen  desires 
me,'  says  the  Prince,  with  another  low  bow.  25 

"'You  have  taken  a  foreign  wife,  my  lord,  and  a  foreign 
religion;    was  not  that  of  England  good  enough  for  you?' 

"'In  returning  to  my  father's  church,'  says  the  Prince,  M 
do  not  love  my  mother  the  less,  nor  am  I  the  less  faithful  ser- 
vant of  your  Majesty.'  3° 

"Here,"  says  Beatrix,  "the  favourite  gave  me  a  little 
signal  with  her  hand  to  fall  back,  which  I  did,  though  I  died 
to  hear  what  should  pass;  and  whispered  something  to  the 
Queen,  which  made  her  Majesty  start  and  utter  one  or  two 
words  in  a  hurried  manner,  looking  towards  the  Prince,  and  35 
catching  hold  with  her  hand  of  the  arm  of  her  chair.  He 
advanced  still  nearer  towards  it ;  he  began  to  speak  very 
rapidly;  I  caught  the  words:  'Father,  blessing,  forgiveness,' 
—  and  then  presently  the  Prince  fell  on  his  knees ;    took 


454  HENRY  ESMOND 

from  his  breast  a  paper  he  had  there,  handed  it  to  the  Queen, 
who,  as  soon  as  she  saw  it,  flung  up  both  her  arms  with  a 
scream,  and  took  away  that  hand  nearest  the  Prince,  and 
which  he  endeavoured  to  kiss.    He  went  on  speaking  with  great 

5  animation  of  gesture,  now  clasping  his  hands  together  on 
his  heart,  now  opening  them  as  though  to  say :  '  I  am  here, 
your  brother,  in  your  power.'  Lady  Masham  ran  round  on 
the  other  side  of  the  chair,  kneehng  too,  and  speaking  with 
great  energy.     She  clasped  the  Queen's  hand  on  her  side,  and 

lo  picked  up  the  paper  her  Majesty  had  let  fall.  The  Prince 
rose  and  made  a  further  speech  as  though  he  would  go ;  the 
favourite  on  the  other  hand  urging  her  mistress,  and  then 
running  back  to  the  Prince  brought  him  back  once  more 
close  to  the  chair.     Again  he  knelt  down  and  took  the  Queen's 

15  hand,  which  she  did  not  withdraw,  kissing  it  a  hundred  times; 
my  lady  all  the  time,  with  sobs  and  supplications,  speaking 
over  the  chair.  This  while  the  Queen  sat  with  a  stupefied 
look,  crumpling  the  paper  with  one  hand,  as  my  Prince  em- 
braced the  other  :  then  of  a  sudden  she  uttered  several  piercing 

20  shrieks,  and  burst  into  a  great  lit  of  hysterick  tears  and 
laughter.  'Enough,  enough,  sir,  for  this  time,'  I  heard  Lady 
Masham  say;  and  the  chairman,  who  had  withdrawn  round 
the  B;uiqueting-room,  came  back,  alarmed  by  the  cries: 
'Quick,'  says   Lady  Masham,   'get  some   help,'  and   I   ran 

25  towards  the  Doctor,  who,  with  the  Bishop  of  Rochester, 
came  up  instantly.  Lady  Masham  whispered  the  Prince 
he  might  hope  for  the  very  best;  and  to  be  ready  to-morrow; 
and  he  hath  gone  away  to  the  Bishop  of  Rochester's  house, 
to  meet  several  of  his  friends  there.     And  so  the  great  stroke 

30  is  struck,"  says  Beatrix,  going  down  on  her  ^ knees,  and 
clasping  her  hands,  "God  save  the  King:  God  save  the 
King." 

l>eatrix's  tale   told,   and  the  young  lady  herself  calmed 
somewhat  of  her  agitation,   we  asked   with   regard   to  the 

35  Pi-ince,  who  was  absent  with  J3ishop  Atterbury,  and  were 
informed  that  'twas  likely  \\v.  might  remain  abroad  the  whole 
day.  Beatrix's  three  kinsfolk  looked  at  one  another  at 
this  intelligence;  'twas  clear  the  same  thought  was  passing 
through  the  minds  of  all. 


HENRY   ESMOND  455 

But  who  should  begin  to  break  the  news?  Monsieur 
Baptiste,  that  is  Frank  Castlewood,  turned  very  red,  and 
looked  towards  Esmond ;  the  Colonel  bit  his  hps,  and  fairly 
beat  a  retreat  into  the  window :  it  was  Lady  Castlewood  that 
opened  upon  Beatrix  with  the  news  which  we  knew  vrould  do  5 
anything  but  please  her. 

"We  are  glad."  says  she,  taking  her  daughter's  hand,  and 
speaking  in  a  gentle  voice,  "that  the  guest  is  away." 

Beatrix  drew  back  in  an  instant,  looking  round  her  at  us 
three,  and  as  if  divining  a  danger.     "Why  glad?"  says  she,  10 
her  breast  beginning  to  heave;    "are  you  so  soon  tired  of 
him?" 

"We  think  one  of  us  is  devihshly  too  fond  of  him,"  cries 
out  Frank  Castlewood. 

"And  which  is  it  —  you,  my  lord,  or  is  it  mamma,  who  is  15 
jealous  because  he  drinks  my  health?   or  is  it  the  head  of 
the  family"  (here  she  turned  with  an  imperious  look  towards 
Colonel    Esmond),  "who  has  taken  of  late   to  preach  the 
King  sermons?" 

"We  do  not  say  you  are  too  free  with  his  Majesty."  20 

"I  thank  you,  madam,"  says  Beatrix,  with  a  toss  of  the 
head  and  a  curtsey. 

But  her  mother  continued,  with  very  great  calmness  and 
dignity  —  "At  least  we  have  not  said  so,  though  we  might, 
were  it  possible  for  a  mother  to  say  such  words  to  her  own  25 
daughter,  your  father's  daughter." 

''Eh!  mon  pere°"  breaks  oui  Beatrix,  "was  no  better 
than  other  persons'  fathers;"  and  again  she  looked  towards 
the  Colonel. 

We  ail  felt  a  shock  as  she  uttered  those  two  or  three  French  30 
words;    her  manner  was  exactly  imitated  from  that  of  our 
foreign  guest. 

"You  had  not  learned  to  speak  French  a  month  ago, 
Beatrix,"  says  her  mother,  sadly,  "nor  to  speak  ill  of  your 
father."  35 

Beatrix,  no  doubt,  saw  that  slip  she  had  made  in  her  flurry, 
for  she  blushed  crimson  :  "I  have  learnt  to  honour  the  Iving," 
says  she,  dra^\^ng  up,  "and  'twere  as  well  that  others  sus- 
pected neither  his  Majesty  nor  me." 


456  HENRY  ESMOND 

"If  you  respected  your  mother  a  little  more/'  Frank  said, 
'"Trix,  you  would  do  yourself  no  hurt." 

"I  am  no  child/'  says  she,  turning  round  on  him;  "we 
have  lived  very  well  these  five  years  without  the  benefit  of 
5  your  advice  or  example,  and  I  intend  to  take  neither  now. 
Why  does  not  the  head  of  the  house  speak?"  she  went  on; 
''he  rules  everything  here;  when  his  chaplain°  has  done 
singing  the  psalms,  will  his  lordship  deliver  the  sermon? 
I  am  tired  of  the  psalms."  The  Prince  had  used  almost  the 
lo  very  same  words  in  regard  tp  Colonel  Esmond,  that  the 
imprudent  girl  repeated  in  her  wrath. 

"You  show  yourself  a  very  apt  scholar,  madam/'  says  the 

Colonel;    and  turning  to  his  mistress:    "Did  3^our  guest  use 

these  words  in  your  ladyship's  hearing,  or  was  it  to  Beatrix  in 

>-  private  that  he  was  pleased  to  impart  his  opinion  regarding 

my  tiresome  sermon?" 

"Have  you  seen  him  alone?"  cries  my  lord,  starting  up 
with  an  oath:    "by  God,  have  you  seen  him  alone?" 

"  Were  he  here,  you  wouldn't  dare  so  to  insult  me ;  no,  you 
20  would  not  dare!"  cries  Frank's  sister.  "Keep  j^our  oaths, 
my  lord,  for  your  wife ;  we  are  not  used  here  to  such  language'. 
Till  you  came,  there  used  to  be  kindness  between  me  and 
mamma,  and  I  cared  for  her  when  you  never  did,  when  you 
were  away  for  years  with  your  horses,  and  your  mistress, 
?,  and  your  popish  wife." 

"By ,"  says  my  lord,  rapping  out  another  oath,  "Clo- 
tilda is  an  angel ;  how  dare  you  say  a  word  against  Clotilda  ?  " 
Colonel  Esmond  could  not  refrain  from  a  smile,  to  see  how 
easy  Frank's  attack  was  drawn  off  by  that  feint :  —  "I  fancy 
-  ('lotilda  is  not  the  subject  in  hand,"  says  Mr.  Iilsmond,  rather 
scornfully;  "her  ladyship  is  at  Paris,  a  hundred  leagues  off, 
preparing  baby-linen.  It  is  about  my  Lord  Castlewood's 
sister,  and  not  his  wife,  the  question  is." 

"Ho  is  not  my  Lord  Castlewood,"  says  Beatrix,  "and  he 
3,  knows  he  is  not ;  he  is  Colonel  Francis  Esmond's  son,  and  no 
more,  and  he  wears  a  false  title;  and  he  lives  on  another 
man's  land,  and  he  knows  it."  Here  was  another  desperate 
sally  of  the  poor  beleaguered  garrison,  and  an  alerte°  in 
another   (juarter.     "Again,    I   beg  your  pardon,"  says   Es- 


I 


HENRY  ESMOND  457 

mond ;  "  if  there  are  no  proofs  of  my  claim,  I  have  no  claim. 
If  my  father  acknowledged  no  heir,  yours  was  his  lawful  suc- 
cessor, and  my  Lord  Castlewood  hath  as  good  a  right  to  his 
rank  and  small  estate  as  any  man  in  England.  But  that 
again  is  not  the  question,  as  you  know  very  well :  let  us  bring  5 
our  talk  back  to  it,  as  you  will  have  me  meddle  in  it.  And 
I  v\-ill  give  you  frankly  my  opinion,  that  a  house  where  a 
Prince  lies  all  day,  Avho  respects  no  woman,  is  no  house  for 
a  young  unmarried  lady ;  that  you  were  better  in  the  country 
than  here ;  that  he  is  here  on  a  great  end,  from  which  no  ic 
folly  should  divert  him ;  and  that  having  nobly  done  your 
part  of  this  morning,  Beatrix,  you  should  retire  off  the  scene 
awhile,  and  leave  it  to  the  other  actors  of  the  play.'' 

As  the  Colonel  spoke  with  a  perfect  calmness  and  politeness, 
such  as  'tis  to  be  hoped  he  hath  always  shown  to  women,'  his  15 
mistress  stood  by  him  on  one  side  of  the  table,  and  Frank 
Castlewood  on  the  other  hemming  in  poor  Beatrix,  that  was 
behind  it,  and,  as  it  were,  surrounding  her  with  our  ap- 
proaches. 

Having  twice  salhed  out,  and  been  beaten  back,  she  now,  as  20 
I  expected,  tried  the  ultima  ratio°  of  women,  and  had  recourse 
to  tears.  Her  beautiful  eyes  filled  with  them ;  I  never  could 
bear  in  her,  nor  in  any  woman,  that  expression  of  pain :  — 
''I  am  alone,"  sobbed  she;  "you  are  three  against  me,  my 
brother,  my  mother,  and  you.  What  have  I  done,  that  you  25 
should  speak  and  look  so  unkindly  at  me?  Is  it  my  fault 
that  the  Prince  should,  as  you  say,  admire  me  ?     Did  I  bring 

1  My  dear  father  saith  quite  truly  that  his  manner  towards  our  sex 
was  uniformly  courteous.     From  my  infancy  upwards,  he  treated  me 
with  an  extreme  gentleness,  as  though  I  was  a  little  lady.      I  can  30 
scarce  remember  (though  I   tried  him  often)  ever  hearing  a  rough 
word  from  him,  nor  was  he  less  grave  and  kind  in  his  manner  to  the 
humblest  ncgresses  on  his  estate.     He  was  familiar  with    no  one  ex- 
cept  mj'  mother,  and  it  was  delightful  to  witness  up  to  the  very  last 
days  the  confidence  between  them.      He  was  obeyed  eagerh'  by  all  35 
under  him  ;    and  my  mother  and  all  her  household  lived  in  a  constant 
emulation  to  please  him,  and  quite  a  terror  lest  in  any  way  they 
should  offend  liim.     He  was  the  humblest  man,   with  all   this;    the 
least  exacting,  the  most  easily  contented  ;   and  Mr.  Benson,  our  min- 
ister at  Castlewood,  who  attended   him  at  the  last,  ever  said — 'I  40 
know  not  what  Colonel  Esmond's  doctrme  was,  but  his  hfe  and  death 
were  those  of  a  devout  Christian.'  —  K.h,.  W« 


458  HENRY   ESMOND 

him  here  ?  Did  I  do  aught  but  what  j^ou  bade  me,  in  making 
him  welcome?  Did  you  not  tell  me  that  our  duty  wa^  to 
die  for  him?  Did  you  not  teach  me,  mother,  night  and 
morning,  to  pray  for  the  King,  before  even  ourselves  ?  What 
5  would  you  have  of  me,  cousin,  for  you  are  the  chief  of  the 
conspiracy  against  me;  I  know  you  are,  sir,  and  that  my 
mother  and  brother  are  acting  but  as  you  bid  them ;  whither 
would  you  have  me  go?" 

"I  would   but  remove  from  the  Prince,"  says  Esmond, 

lo  gravely,  "a  dangerous  temptation;    Heaven  forbid  I  should 

say  you  would  yield  :  I  would  only  have  him  free  of  it.     Your 

honour  needs  no  guardian,  please  God,  but  his  imprudence 

doth.     He  is  so  far  removed  from  all  women  by  his  rank,  that 

his  pursuit  of  them  cannot  but  be  unlawful.    We  would  remove 

15  the  dearest  and  fairest  of  our  family  from  the  chance  of  that 

insult,  and  that  is  wh}^  we  would  have  you  go,  (iear  Beatrix." 

"Harry  speaks  like  a  book,"  says  Frank,  wita  one  of  his 

oaths,   "and,   by ,  every  word  he  saith  is  t;ue.     You 

can't  help  being  handsome,  'Trix,  no  more  can  tli3  Prince 
25  help  following  you.  My  counsel  is  that  you  go  out  of  harm's 
way;  for,  by  the  Lord,  were  the  Prince  to  play  any  tricks 
with  you.  King  as  he  is,  or  is  to  be,  Harry  Esmond  and  I 
would  have  justice  of  him." 

"Are  not  two  such  champions  enough  to  guard  me?"  says 
25  Beatrix,  something  sorrowfully;   "sure,  with  you  two  watch- 
ing, no  evil  could  happen  to  me." 

"In  faith,  I  think  not,  Beatrix,"  says  Colonel  Esmond; 
"nor  if  the  Prince  knew  us  would  he  try." 

"But  does  he  know  you?"  interposed  Lady  Esmond,  very 
30  quiet;  "he  comes  of  a  country  where  the  pursuit  of  kings 
is  thought  no  dishonour  to  a  woman :  let  us  go,  dearest 
Beatrix.  Shall  we  go  to  Walcote  or  to  Castlewood  ?  We  are 
best  away  from  the  city;  and  when  the  Prince  is  acknow- 
ledged, and  our  champions  have  restored  him,  and  he  hath 
35  his  own  house  at  Saint  James's  or  Windsor,  we  can  come 
back  to  ours  here.  Do  you  not  think  so,  Harry  and 
Frank?" 

Frank  and  Harry  thought  with  her,  you  may  be  sure. 
"We  will  go,  then,"  says  Beatrix,  turning  a  Uttle  pale; 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  459 

■'Lady  Masham  is  to  give  me  warning  to-night  how  her 
Majesty  is,  and  to-morrow " 

"I  think  we  had  best  go  to-day,  my  dear,"  says  my  Lady 
Castlewood;  "we  might  have  the  coach,  and  sleep  at  Houns- 
low,°   and    reach    home    to-morrow.     Tis   twelve    o'clock;  5 
bid  the  coach,  cousin,  be  ready  at  one/' 

"For  shame,"  burst  out  Beatrix,  in  a  passion  of  tears  and 
mortification:  "you  disgrace  me  by  your  cruel  precautions; 
my  own  mother  is  the  first  to  suspect  me,  and  would  take  me 
away  as  my  gaoler.  I  will  not  go  with  you,  mother;  I  will  10 
go  as  no  one's  prisoner.  If  I  wanted  to  deceive,  do  you 
think  I  could  find  no  means  of  evading  you?  My  family 
suspects  me.  As  those  mistrust  me  that  ought  to  love  me 
most,  let  me  leave  them;  I  will  go,  but  I  will  go  alone:  to 
Castlewood,  be  it.  I  have  been  unhappy  there  and  lonely  15 
enough,  let  me  go  back,  but  spare  me  at  least  the  humiliation 
of  setting  a  watch*  over  my  misery,  which  is  a  trial  I  can't 
bear.  Let  me  go  when  you  will,  but  alone,  or  not  at  all. 
You  three  can  stay  and  triumph  over  my  unhappiness,  and 
I  will  bear  it  as  I  have  borne  it  before.  Let  my  gaoler-in-  20 
chief  go  order  the  coach  that  is  to  take  me  away.  I  thank 
you,  Henry  Esmond,  for  your  share  in  the  conspiracy.  All 
my  life  long,  I'll  thank  you,  and  remember  you ;  and  you, 
brother,  and  you,  mother,  how  shall  I  show  my  gratitude  to 
you  for  your  careful  defence  of  my  honour?"  25 

She  swept  out  of  the  room  with  the  air  of  an  empress, 
flinging  glances  of  defiance  at  us  all,  and  leaving  us  conquerors 
of  the  field,  but  scared,  and  almost  ashamed  of  our  victory. 
It  did  indeed  seem  hard  and  cruel  that  we  three  should  have 
conspired  the  banishment  and  humiliation  of  that  fair  crea-  30 
ture.  We  looked  at  each  other  in  silence ;  'twas  not  the  first 
stroke  by  many  of  our  actions  in  that  unlucky  time,  which 
being  done,  we  wished  undone.  We  agreed  it  was  best  she 
should  go  alone,  speaking  stealthily  to  one  another,  and 
under  our  breaths,  like  persons  engaged  in  an  act  they  felt  35 
ashamed  in  doing. 

In  a  half-hour,  it  might  be,  after  our  talk  she  came  back, 
her  countenance  wearing  the  same  defiant  air  which  it  had 
borne  when  she  left  us.     She  held  a  shagreen-case  in  her 


460  HENRY   ESMOND 

hand ;  Esmond  knew  it  as  containing  his  diamonds  which 
he  had  given  to  her  for  her  marriage  with  Duke  Hamilton, 
and  which  she  had  worn  so  splendidly  on  the  inauspicious 
night  of  the  Prince's  arrival.  "I  have  brought  back/'  says 
5  she,  ''to  the  Marquis  of  Esmond  the  present  he  deigned  to 
make  me  in  days  when  he  trusted  me  better  than  now.  I 
will  never  accept  a  benefit  or  a  kindness  from  Henry  Esmond 
more,  and  I  give  back  these  family  diamonds,  which  belonged 
to  one  king's  mistress,  to  the  gentleman  that  suspected  I 

10  would  be  another.  Have  you  been  upon  your  message  of 
coach-caller,  my  Lord  Marquis?  Will  you  send  your  valet 
to  see  that  I  do  not  run  away  ?  "  We  were  right :  yet,  by  her 
manner,  she  had  put  us  all  in  the  wrong ;  we  were  conquerors, 
yet  the  honours  of  the  day  seemed  to  be  with  the  poor  op- 

15  pressed  girl. 

That  luckless  box  containing  the  stones  had  first  been 
ornamented  with  a  baron's  coronet,  when  Beatrix  was  en- 
gaged to  the  3^oung  gentleman  from  whom  she  parted,  and 
after.wards  the  gilt  crown  of  a  duchess  figured  on  the  cover, 

20  which  also  poor  Beatrix  was  destined  never  to  wear.  Lady 
Castlewood  opened  the  case  mechanically  and  scarce  thinking 
what  she  did;  and  behold,  besides  the  diamonds,  Esmond's 
present,  there  lay  in  the  box  the  enamelled  miniature  of  the 
late  Duke,  which  Beatrix  had  laid  aside  with  her  mourning 

25  when  the  King  came  into  the  house ;  and  which  the  poor 
heedless  thing  very  likely  had  forgotten. 

"Do  you  leave  this  too,  Beatrix?"  says  her  mother,  taking 
the  miniature  out,  and  with  a  cruelty  she  did  not  very 
often  show;  but  there  are  some  moments  when  the  tenderest 

30  women  are  cruel,  and  some  triumphs  which  angels  can't 
forgo.' 

Having  delivered  this  stab,  Lady  Esmond  was  frightened 
at  th(;  effect  of  her  blow.  It  went  to  poor  Beatrix's  heart; 
she  flushed  up  and  passed  a  handkerchief  across  her  eyes, 

35  and  kissed  the  miniature,  and  put  it  into  her  bosom :  —  "I 

*  This  remark  shows  how  unjustly  and  contemptuously  even  the 
best  of  men  will  sonmtinies  ju(lf>;e  of  our  sex.  Lady  Esmond  had  no 
intention  of  triumphing  over  her  daughter;  but  from  a  sense  of  duty 
alone  poiMtfMJ  out  lier  deplorable  wrong.  —  R.  E. 


HENRY   ESMOND  461 

had  forgot  it/'  says  she,  ''my  injury  made  me  forget  my 
grief,  my  mother  has  recalled  both  to  me.  Farewell,  mother, 
I  think  I  never  can  forgive  you,  something  hath  broke 
between  us  that  no  tears  nor  years  can  repair ;  I  always  said 
I  was  alone;  you  never  loved  me,  never,  and  were  jealous  of  5 
me  from  the  time  I  sate  on  my  father's  knee.  Let  me  go  away, 
the  sooner  the  better,  I  can  bear  to  be  with  you  no  more." 

"Go,  child,"  says  her  mother,  still  very  stern,  "go  and  bend 
ycur  proud  knees  and  ask  forgiveness,  go  pray  in  solitude  for 
humility  and  repentance.  'Tis  not  your  reproaches  that  10 
make  me  unhappy,  'tis  your  hard  heart,  my  poor  Beatrix; 
may  God  soften  it  and  teach  you  one  day  to  feel  for  your 
mother." 

If  my  mistress  was  cruel,  at  least  she  never  could  be  got  to 
own  as  much.     Her  haughtiness  quite  overtopped  Beatrix's;  15 
and  if  the  girl  had  a  proud  spirit,  I  very  much  fear  it  came  to 
her  by  inheritance. 

CHAPTER  XI 

OUR    GUEST   QUITS    US     AS     NOT     BEING    HOSPITABLE     ENOUGH 

Beatrix's  departure  took  place  within  an  hour,  her  maid 
going  with  her  in  the  post-chaise,  °  and  a  man  armed  on  the 
coach-box  to  prevent  any  danger  of  the  road.  Esmond  and  20 
Frank  thought  of  escorting  the  carriage,  but  she  indig- 
nantly refused  their  company,  and  another  man  was  sent 
to  follow  the  coach,  and  not  to  leave  it  till  it  had  passed 
over  Hounslow  Heath  on  the  next  day.  And  these  two 
forming  the  whole  of  Lady  Castlewood's  male  domesticks,  25 
Mr.  Esmond's  faithful  John  Lockwood  came  to  wait  on  his 
mistress  during  their  absence,  though  he  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  escort  Mrs.  Lucy,  his  sweetheart,  on  her  journey 
into  the  country. 

We  had  a  gloomy  and  silent  meal ;   it  seemed  as  if  a  dark-  30 
ness  was  over  the  house,  since  the  bright  face  of  Beatrix  had 
been  withdrawn  from  it.     In  the  afternoon  came  a  message 
from   the  favourite  to  relieve  us  somewhat  from    this   de- 
spondency.    "The  Queen  hath  been  much  shaken,"  the  note 


462  HENRY   ESMOND 

said ;  "she  is  better  now,  and  all  things  will  go  well.  Let  my 
Lord  Castlewood  be  ready  against  Ave  send  for  him." 

At  night  there  came  a  second  billet° :   ''There  hath  been  a 
great  battle  in  Council ;   Lord  Treasurer  hath  broke  his  staff, 

5  and  hath  fallen  never  to  rise  again ;  no  successor  is  appointed. 

Lord   B °  receives   a   great  "Whig   company  to-night   at 

Golden  Square.  If  he  is  trimming,  others  are  true;  the 
Queen  hath  no  more  fits,  but  is  a-bed  now,  and  more  quiet. 
Be  ready  against  morning,  when  I  still  hope  all  will  be  well." 

*°      The  Prince  came  home  shortly  after  the  messenger  who 

bore   this  billet  had  left  the   house.     His   Royal   Highness 

was  so  much  the  better  for  the  Bishop's  liquor,  that  to  talk 

^affairs  to  him  now  was  of  little  service.     He  was  helped  to 

the  Royal  bed ;   he  called  Castlewood  familiarly  by  his  own 

15  name;  he  quite  forgot  the  part  upon  the  acting  of  which 
his  crown,  his  safety  depended.  'Twas  lucky  that  my 
Lady  Castlewood 's  servants  were  out  of  the  way,  and  only 
those  heard  him  who  would  not  betray  him.  He  inquired 
after  the  adorable  Beatrix,  with  a  royal  hiccup  in  his  voice; 

20  he  was  easily  got  to  bed,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  plunged 
in  that  deep  slumber  and  forgetfulness  with  which  Bacchus° 
rewards  the  votaries  of  that  god.  We  wished  Beatrix  had 
been  there  to  see  him  in  his  cups.  We  regretted,  perhaps, 
that  she  was  gone. 

25  One  of  the  party  at  Kensington  Square  was  fool  enough 
to  ride  to  Hounslow  that  niglit,  coram  latronihus°  and  to 
the  irm  which  the  family  used  ordinarily  in  their  journeys 
out  of  London.  Esmond  desired  my  landlord  not  to  acquaint 
Madam  Beatrix  with  his  coming,  and  had  the  grim  satis- 

30  faction  of  passing  by  the  door  of  the  chamber  where  she  lay 
with  her  maid,  and  of  watching  her  chariot  set  forth  in  the 
early  morning.  He  saw  her  smile  and  sli})  money  into  the 
man's  hand  who  was  ordered  to  ride  behind  the  coach  as 
far  as  Bagshot.°     The  road  b(nngoj)en,  and  the  other  servant 

35  armed,  it  appeared  she  dispensed  with  the  escort  of  a  second 
domestick;  and  this  fellow,  bidding  liis  young  mistress 
jwlicu  with  many  bows,  went  and  took  a  jwt  of  ale  in  the 
kitchen,  and  returned  in  company  with  his  brother  servant 
John  Coachman,  and  his  horses  back  to  London. 


I 


HENRY  ESMOND  463 

They  were  not  a  mile  out  of  Hounslow  when  the  two 
worthies  stopped  for  more  drink,  and  here  they  were  scared 
by  seeing  Colonel  Esmond  gallop  by  them.  The  man  said 
in  reply  to  Colonel  Esmond's  stern  question,  that  his  young 
mistress  had  sent  her  duty,  only  that,  no  other  message :  5 
she  had  had  a  very  good  night,  and  would  reach  Castlewood 
by  nightfall.  The  Colonel  had  no  time  for  further  colloquy, 
and  galloped  on  swiftly  to  London,  having  business  of  great 
irnportance  there,  as  my  reader  very  well  knoweth.  The 
thought  of  Beatrix  riding  avray  from  the  danger  soothed  it 
his  mind  not  a  Uttle.  His  horse  was  at  Kensington  Square 
(honest  Dapple  knew  the  way  thither  well  enough)  before 
the  tipsy  guest  of  last  night  was  awake  and  sober. 

The  account  of  the  previous  evening  was  known  all  over 
the  town  early  next  day.  A  violent  altercation  had  taken  15 
place  before  the  Queen  in  the  Council-Chamber ;  and  all  the 
coffee-houses  had  their  version  of  the  quarrel.  The  news 
brought  my  Lord  Bishop  early  to  Kensington  Square,  where 
he  awaited  the  waking  of  his  Royal  master  above  stairs, 
and  spoke  confidently  of  having  him  proclaimed  as  Prince  of  20 
Wales  and  heir  to  the  throne  before  that  day  was  over. 
The  Bishop  had  entertained  on  the  pre\ious  afternoon  cer- 
tain of  the  most  influential  gentlemen  of  the  true  British 
party.  His  Royal  Highness  had  charmed  all,  both  Scots 
and  English,  Papists  and  Churchmen  :  ''Even  Quakers,''  says  25 
he,  "  were  in  our  meeting,  and  if  the  stranger  took  a  little  too 
much  British  punch  and  ale,  he  will  soon  grow  more  accus- 
tomed to  those  hquors;  and  my  Lord  Castlewood,"  says  the 
Bishop  with  a  laugh,  "must  bear  the  cruel  charge  of  having 
been  for  once  in  his  life  a  little  tipsy.  He  toasted  jouv  30 
lovely  sister  a  dozen  times,  at  which  we  all  laughed," 
says  the  Bishop,  "admiring  so  much  fraternal  affection. — 
Where  is  that  charming  nymph,  and  why  doth  she  not  adorn 
your  ladyship's  tea-table  with  her  bright  eyes?" 

Her  ladyship  said,  drih^,  that  Beatrix  was  not  at  home  35 
that  morning;    my  Lord  Bishop  was  too  busy  with  great 
affairs  to  trouble  himself  much  about  the  presence  or  absence 
of  any  lady  however  beautiful. 

We  were  vet  at   table   when  Dr.   A came  from   the 


464  HENRY   ESMOND 

Palace  with  a  look  of  great  alarm;  the.  shocks  the  Queen 
had  had  the  day  before  had  acted  on  her  severely;  he  had 
been  sent  for,  and  had  ordered  her  to  be  blooded. °  The 
surgeon  of  Long  Acre  had  come  to  cup  the  Queen,  and  her 
5  Majesty  was  now  more  easy  and  breathed  more  freely.  What 
made  us  start  at  the  name  of  Mr.  Ayme?  "II  faut  etre 
aimable  pour  etre  aime,°"  says  the  merry  Doctor;  Esmond 
pulled  his  sleeve,  and  bade  him  hush.  It  was  to  Ayme's 
house,  after  his  fatal  duel,  that  my  dear  Lord  Castle  wood, 

10  Frank's  father,  had  been  carried  to  die. 

No  second  visit  could  be  paid  to  the  Queen  on  that  day  at 
any  rate;  and  when  our  guest  above  gave  his  signal  that 
he  was  awake,  the  Doctor,  the  Bishop,  and  Colonel  Esmond, 
waited  upon  the  Prince's  levee,  and  brought  him  their  news, 

15  cheerful  or  dubious.  The  Doctor  had  to  go  away  presently, 
but  promised  to  keep  the  Prince  constantly  acquainted  with 
what  was  taking  place  at  the  Palace  hard  by.  His  counsel 
was,  and  the  Bishop's,  that  as  soon  as  ever  the  Queen's 
malady  took  a  favourable  turn,  the  Prince  should  be  intro- 

20  duced  to  her  bed-side ;  the  Council  summoned ;  the  guard 
at  Kensington  and  St.  James's,  of  which  two  regiments  were 
to  be  entirely  relied  on,  and  one  known  not  to  be  hostile, 
would  declare  for  the  Prince,  as  the  Queen  would  before  the 
Lords  of  her  Council,  designating  him  as  the  heir  to  her 

25  throne. 

With  locked  doors,  and  Colonel  Esmond  acting  as  secretary, 
the  Prince  and  his  Lordship  of  Rochester  passed  many  hours 
of  this  day  composing  Proclamations  and  Addresses  to  the 
Country,  to  the  Scots,  to  the  Clergy,  to  the  People  of  London 

30  and  England ;  announcing  the  arrival  of  the  exiled  de- 
scendant of  three  sovereigus,  and  his  acknowledgment  by 
his  sister,  as  heir  to  the  throne.  Every  safeguard  for  their 
liberties,  the  Church  and  People  could  ask,  was  i)romised 
to  them.     The  Bishop  could  answer  for  the  adhesion  of  very 

35  many  prelates,  who  besought  of  their  flocks  and  brother 
ecclesiasticks  to  recognise  the  sacred  right  of  the  future 
sovereign,  and  to  purg(;  the  country  of  the  sin  of  rebellion. 

During  the  composition  of  these  i)apers,  more  messengers 
than  one  came  from  the  Palace,  regarding  the  state  of  the 


HENRY  ESMOND  465 

August  Patient  there  lying.     At  mid-day  she  was  somewhat 
better;    at   evening  the   torpor   again   seized   her,  and  she 

wandered  in  her  mind.     At  night  Dr.  A was  with  us 

again,   with   a   report   rather   more  favourable :    no   instant 
danger  at  any  rate  was  apprehended.     In  the  course  of  the  5 
last  two  years  her  Majesty  had  had  many  attacks  similar, 
but  more  severe. 

By  this  time  we  had  finished  a  half-dozen  of  Proclamations 
(the  wording  of  them  so  as  to  offend  no  parties,  and  not  to 
^iwQ  umbrage  to  Whigs  or  Dissenters,  required  ver}^  great  10 
caution),  and  the  young  Prince,  who  had  indeed  shown,  dur- 
ing a  long  day's  labour,  both  alacrity  at  seizing  the  infor- 
mation given  him,  and  ingenuity  and  skill  in  turning  the 
phrases  which  were  to  go  out  signed  by  his  name,  here 
exhibited  a  good-humour  and  thoughtfulness  that  ought  to  15 
be  set  down  to  his  credit. 

"Were   these   papers   to   be   mislaid,'^   says  he,    "or   our 
scheme  to  come  to  mishap,  my  Lord  Esmond's  writing  would 
bring  him  to  a  place  where  I  lieartily  hope  never  to  see  him ; 
and  so,  by  your  leave,  I  will  copy  the  papers  myself,  though  20 
I  am  not  very  strong  in  spelling ;   and  if  they  are  found  they 
will   implicate   none   but   the   person  they  most   concern;" 
and  so,  having  carefully  copied  the  Proclamations  out,  the 
Prince    burned    those    in    Colonel    Esmond's    handwriting:     - 
"And  now,  and  now,  gentlemen,"  says  he,   "let  us  go  to  25 
supper,  and  drink  a  glass  with  the  ladies.     My  Lord  Esmond, 
you  will  sup  with  us  to-night;   you  have  given  us  of  late  too 
little  of  your  company." 

The  Prince's  meals  were  commonly  served  in  the  chamber 
which  had  been  Beatrix's  bed-room,  adjoining  that  in  which  30 
he  slept.  And  the  dutiful  practice  of  his  entertainers  was  to 
wait  until  their  Royal  Guest  bade  them  take  their  places 
at  table  before  they  sate  down  to  partake  of  the  meal.  On 
this  night,  as  you  may  suppose,  only  Frank  Castlewood 
and  his  mother  were  in  waiting  when  the  supper  was  an-  35 
nounced  to  receive  the  Prince;  who  had  passed  the  whole 
of  the  day  in  his  own  apartment,  with  the  Bishop  as  his 
Minister  of  State,  and  Colonel  Esmond  officiating  as  Secre- 
tary of  his  Council. 


466  HENRY  ESMOND 

The  Prince's  countenance  wore  an  expression  by  no  means 
pleasant,  when  looldng  towards  the  Uttle  company  assembled, 
and  waiting  for  him,  he  did  not  see  Beatrix's  bright  face 
there  as  usual  to  greet  him.     He  asked  Lady  Esmond  for 

5  h's  fair  introducer  of  yesterday :  her  ladyship  only  cast  her 
eye?  down,  and  said  quietly,  Beatrix  could  not  be  of  the 
supper  that  night;  nor  did  she  show  the  least  sign  of  con- 
fusion, whereas  Castlewood  turned  red,  and  Esmond  was 
no    less    embarrassed.     I  think  women  have  an  instinct  of 

10  dissimulation ;  they  know  by  nature  how  to  disguise  their 
emotions  far  better  than  the  most  consummate  male  courtiers 
can  do.  Is  not  the  better  part  of  the  life  of  many  of  them 
spent  in  hiding  their  feelings,  in  cajoling  their  tyrants,  in 
masking  over  with  fond  smiles  and  artful  gaiety  their  doubt, 

15  or  their  grief,  or  their  terror? 

Our  guest  swallowed  his  supper  very  sulky;  it  was  not 
till  the  second  bottle  his  Highness  began  to  rally;  when 
Lady  Castlewood  asked  leave  to  depart,  he  sent  a  message 
to  Beatrix,  hoping  she  would  be  present  at  the  next  day's 

20  dinner,  and  applied  himself  to  drink,  and  to  talk  afterwards, 
for  which  there  was  subject  in  plenty. 

The  next  day,  we  heard  from  our  Informer  at  Kensington, 
that  the  Queen  was  somewhat  better,  and  had  been  up  for  an 
hour,  though  she  was  not  well  enough  yet  to  receive  any  visitor. 

25  At  dinner  a  single  cover  was  laid  for  his  Royal  Highness; 
and  the  two  gentlemen  alone  waited  on  him.  We  had  had  a 
consultation  in  the  morning  with  Lady  (Jastlewood,  in  which 
it  had  been  determined,  that  should  his  Highness  ask  further 
questions  about  Beatrix  he  should  be  answered  by  the  gentle- 

30  men  of  the  house. 

He  was  evidently  disturbed  and  uneasy,  looking  towards 
the  door  constantly,  as  if  expecting  some  one.  There 
came,  however,  nol)ody,  except  honest  John  Lockwood 
when  he  knocked  with  a  dish,  which  those  within  took  from 

35  him ;  so  the  meals  were  always  arranged,  and,  I  believe, 
the  council  in  the  kitchen  were  of  opinion,  that  my  young 
lord  had  brought  over  a  priest,  who  had  converted  us  all 
into  Papists,  and  that  Papists  were  like  Jews,  eating  together, 
and  not  choosing  to  take  their  meals  in  the  sight  of  Christians. 


HENRY   ESMOND  467 

The  Prince  tried  to  cover  his  displeasure;  he  was  but  a 
clumsy  dissembler  at  that  time,  and  when  out  of  humour, 
could  with  difficulty  keep  a  serene  countenance ;  and  having 
made  some  foolish  attempts  at  trivial  talk,  he  came  to  liis 
point  presently,  and  in  as  easy  a  manner  as  he  could,  saying  5 
to  Lord  Castlewood,  he  hoped,  he  requested,  his  lordship's 
mother  and  sister  would  be  of  the  supper  that  night.  As 
the  time  hung  heavy  on  him,  and  he  must  not  go  abroad, 
would  not  Miss  Beatrix  hold  him  company  at  a  game  of 
cards  ?  10 

At  this,  looking  up  at  Esmond,  and  taking  the  signal  from 
him,  Lord  Castlewood  informed  his  Royal  Highness  ^  that 
his  sister  Beatrix  was  not  at  Kensington;  and  that  her 
family  had  thought  it  best  she  should  quit  the  town. 

''Not  at   Kensington!"  says  he;    "is  she  ill?    she  was  15 
well,  yesterday;   wherefore  should  she  quit  the  town?     Is  it 
at  your  orders,  my  lord,  or  Colonel  Esmond's,  who  seems  the 
master  of  this  house?" 

"Not  of  this,  sir,"  says  Frank  very  nobly,  "only  of  our 
house  in  the  country,  which  he  hath  given  to  us.     This  is  20 
my  mother's  house,  and  Walcote  is  my  father's,   and  the 
j\Iarquis  of  Esmond  knows  he  hath  but  to  give  his  word,  and 
I  return  his  to  him." 

"The  Marquis  of  Esmond!  —  the  Marquis  of  Esmond," 
says  the  Prince,  tossing  off  a  glass,  "meddles  too  much  with  25 
my  affairs,  and  presumes  on  the  service  he  hath  done  me.  If 
you  want  to  carry  your  suit  with  Beatrix,  my  lord,  by  block- 
ing her  up  in  gaol,  let  me  tell  you  that  is  not  the  way  to  win  a 
woman," 

"I  was  not  aware,  sir,  that  I  had  spoken  of  my  suit  to  30 
Madam  Beatrix  to  your  Royal  Highness." 

"Bah,  bah,  Monsieur!  we  need  not  be  a  conjurer  to  see 
that.  It  makes  itself  seen  at  all  moments.  You  are  jealous, 
my  lord,  and  the  Maid  of  Honour  cannot  look  at  another  face 
without  yours  beginning  to  scowl.  That  which  you  do  is  un-  35 
worthy.  Monsieur;  is  inhospitable,  is,  is  lache,°  yes  lache" 
(he  spoke  rapidly  in  French,  his  rage  carrying  him  away 

^  In  London  we  addressed  the  Prince  as  Royal  Highness,  invari- 
ably ;  though  the  women  persisted  in  giving  him  the  title  of  King. 


468  HENRY   ESMOND 

with  each  phrase) :  '^I  come  to  your  house;  I  risk  my  Mq, 
I  pass  it  in  ennui ;  I  repose  myself  on  your  fideUty ;  I  have 
no  company,  but  your  lordship's  sermons  or  the  conversations 
of  that  adorable  young  lady,,  and  you  take  her  from  me; 
5  and  j'-ou,  you  rest !  Merci,  Monsieur !  'I  shall  thank  you 
when  I  have  the  means;  I  shall  know  to  recompense  a 
devotion,  a  little  importunate,  my  lord,  —  a  little  importu- 
nate. For  a  month  past  your  airs  of  protector  have  annoyed 
me  beyond  measure.     You  deign  to  offer  me  the  crown,  and 

lo  bid  me  take  it  on  my  knees  like  King  John° ;  Eh !  I  know 
my  history.  Monsieur,  and  mock  myself  of  frowning  barons. 
I  admire  your  mistress  and  you  send  her  to  a  Bastile  of  the 
Province;  I  enter  your  house  and  you  mistrust  me.  I  will 
leave  it,  Monsieur;    from  to-night  I  will  leave  it.     I  have 

15  other  friends,  whose  loyalty  will  not  be  so  ready  to  question 
mine.  If  I  have  garters  to  give  away,  'tis  to  noblemen  who 
are  not  so  ready  to  think  evil.  Bring  me  a  coach  and  let 
me  quit  this  place,  or  let  the  fair  Beatrix  return  to  it.  I  will 
not  have  your  hospitality  at  the  expense  of  the  freedom  of 

20  that  fair  creature." 

This  harangue  was  uttered  with  rapid  gesticulations  such 
as  the  French  use,  and  in  the  language  of  that  nation.  The 
Prince  striding  up  and  down  the  room;  his  face  flushed, 
and  his  hands  trembling  with  anger.     He  was  very  thin  and 

25  frail  from  repeated  illness  and  a  life  of  pleasure.  Either 
Castlewood  or  Esmond  could  ha\'e  broke  him  across  their 
knee,  and  in  half  a  minute's  struggle  put  an  end  to  him; 
and  here  he  was  insulting  us  both,  and  scarce  deigning  to 
hide  from  the  two  whose  honour  it  most  concerned,  the  passion 

30  he  felt  for  the  young  lady  of  our  family.     My  Lord  Castle- 
wood replied  to  the  Prince's  tirade  very  nobly  and  simpl)^ 
"►Sir,"  says  he,  "your  Royal  Highness  is  pleased  to  forget 
that  others  risk   their  lives,  and  for  j^our  cause.     Very  few 
Englishmen,  please  God,  would  dare  to  lay  hands  on  your 

35  sacred  person,  though  none  would  ever  think  of  respecting 
burs.  ()ur  family's  lives  are  at  your  service,  and  everythirfg 
we  have  except  our  honour." 

"Honour!  bah,  sir,  who  ever  thought  of  hurting  your 
honour?"  says  the  Prince  with  a  peevish  air. 


HENRY   ESMOND  469 

"We  implore  your  Royal  Highness,  never  to  think  of 
hurting  it,"  says  Lord  Castlewood,  with  a  low  bow.  The 
night  being  warm,  the  windows  were  open  both  towards 
the  Gardens  and  the  Square.  Colonel  Esmond  heard  through 
the  closed  door  the  voice  of  a  watchman,  calling  the  hour,  5 
in  the  Square  on  the  other  side.  He  opened  the  door  com- 
municating with  the  Prince's  room ;  Martin,  the  servant, 
that  had  rode  with  Beatrix  to  Hounslow,  was  just  going  out 
of  the  chamber  as  Esmond  entered  it,  and  when  the  fellow 
was  gone,  and  the  vratchman  again  sang  his  cry°  of  "Past  10 
ten  o'clock,  and  a  starlight  night,"  Esmond  spoke  to  the 
Prince  in  a  low  voice,  and  said :  "  Your  Royal  Highness 
hears  that  man." 

"Apres,  Monsieur°?"  says  the  Prince. 

"  I  have  but  to  beckon  him  from  the  window,  and  send  him  15 
fifty  yards,  and  he  returns  with  a  guard  of  men,  and  I  deliver 
up  to  him  the  body  of  the  person  calling  himself  James  the 
Third,  for  whose  capture  Parliament  hath  offered  a  reward 
of  5000/.,  as  your  Royal  Highness  saw  on  our  ride  from 
Rochester.  I  have  but  to  say  the  word,  and,  by  the  Heaven  20 
that  made  me,  I  would  say  it,  if  I  thought  the  Prince,  for 
his  honour's  sake,  would  not  desist  from  insulting  ours. 
But  the  first  gentleman  of  England  knows  his  duty  too  well 
to  forget  himself  with  the  humblest,  or  peril  his  crown  for 
a  deed  that  were  shameful  if  it  were  done."  2}. 

"Has  your  lordship  anything  to  say,"  says  the  Prince, 
turning  to  Frank  Castlewood,  and  quite  pale  with  anger; 
"any  threat  or  any  insult,  with  which  you  would  hke  to  end 
this  agreeable  night's  entertainment?" 

"I  follow  the  head  of  our  house,"  says  Castlewood,  bowing  30 
gravely.     "At  what  time  shall  it  please  the  Prince  that  we 
should  wait  upon  him  in  the  morning?" 

"You  will  wait  on  the  Bishop  of  Rochester  early,  you  will 
bid  him  bring  his  coach  hither;  and  prepare  an  apartment 
for  me  in  his  own  house,  or  in  a  place  of  safety.  The  King  35 
will  reward  you  handsomely,  never  fear,  for  all  you  have 
done  in  his  behalf.  I  wish  you  a  good-night,  and  shall  go 
to  bed,  unless  it  pleases  the  Marquis  of  Esmond  to  call  his 
colleague,  the  watchman,  and  that  I  should  pass  the  night 


470  HENRY  ESMOND 

with  the  Kensington  guard.  Fare  you  well,  be  sure  I  will 
remember  you.  ]\Iy  Lord  Castlewood,  I  can  go  to  bed  to- 
night without  need  of  a  chamberlain.''  And  the  Prince 
dismissed  us  with  a  grim  bow,  locking  one  door  as  he  spoke, 
5  that  into  the  supping-room,  and  the  other  through  which 
we  passed,  after  us.  It  led  into  the  small  chamber  which 
Frank  Castlewood  or  Monsieur  Baptiste  occupied,  and  by 
which  Martin  entered,  when  Colonel  Esmond  but  now  saw 
him  in  the  chamber. 

10  At  an  early  hour  next  morning  the  Bishop  arrived,  and 
was  closeted  for  some  time  with  his  master  in  his  own  apart- 
ment, where  the  Prince  laid  open  to  his  councillor  the  wrongs 
which,  according  to  his  version,  he  had  received  from  the 
gentlemen    of    the    Esmond    family.     The    worthy    prelate 

15  came  out  from  the  conference  with  an  air  of  great  satisfaction : 
he  was  a  man  full  of  resources,  and  of  a  most  assured  fidelity, 
and  possessed  of  genius  and  a  hundred  good  quaUties; 
but  captious  and  of  a  most  jealous  temper,  that  could  not 
help  exulting  at  the  downfall  of  any  favourite ;   and  he  was 

20  pleased  in  spite  of  himself  to  hear  that  the  Esmond  ministry 
was  at  an  end. 

''I  have  soothed  your  Guest,''  says  he,  coming  out  to  the 
two  gentlemen  and  the  widow,  who  had  been  made  acquainted 
with  somewhat   of  the   dispute   of  the   night  before.     ^By 

25  the  version  we  gave  her,  the  Prince  was  only  made  to  exhibit 
anger  because  we  doubted  of  his  intentions  in  respect  to 
Beatrix ;  and  to  leave  us,  because  we  questioned  his  honour.) 
"But  I  think,  all  things  considered,  'tis  as  well  he  should 
leave  this  house;    and  then,   my  Lady  Castlewood,"  says 

30  the   Bishop,    "my  pretty   Beatrix  may  come   back  to  it." 
"She  is  (juite  as  well  at  home  at  Castlewood,"  Esmond's 
mistress  said,  "till  everything  is  over." 

"You  shall  have  your  titl(>,  Esmond,  that  I  promise  you," 
says  the  good  Bishop,  assuming  the  airs  of  a  Prime  Minister. 

35  "The  Prince  hath  expressed  himself  most  nobly  in  regard 
of  the  little  difference  of  last  night,  and  I  promise  you  he 
hath  listened  to  my  sermon,  as  well  as  to  that  of  other  folks," 
says  the  Doctor  archly;  "he  hath  every  great  and  generous 
quality,  with  perhaps  a  weakness  for  the  sex  which  boloDgs 


I 


HENRY   ESMOND  471 

to  his  family,  and  hath  been  known  in  scores  of  popular 
sovereigns  from  King  David  downwards." 

"My   lord,    my   lord,"   breaks   out   Lady   Esmond,    "the 
levity  with  which  you  speak  of  such  conduct  towards  our 
sex  shocks  me,  and  what  you  call  weakness  I  call  deplorable  5 
sin." 

"  Sin  it  is,  my  dear  creature,"  says  the  Bishop  with  a  shrug, 
taking  snuff;  "but  consider,  w^hat  a  sinner  King  Solomon 
was,  and  in  spite  of  a  thousand  of  wives  too." 

"Enough  of  this,  my  lord,"  says  Lady  Castlewood  with  a  lo 
fine  blush,  and  walked  out  of  the  room  very  stately. 

The  Prince  entered  it  presently  with  a  smile  on  his  face, 
and  if  he  felt  any  offence  against  us  on  the  previous  night, 
at  present  exhibited  none.  He  offered  a  hand  to  each  gentle- 
man with  great  courtesy:  "If  all  your  bishops  preach  so  15 
well  as  Doctor  Atterbury,"  says  he,  "I  don't  know,  gentle- 
men, what  may  happen  to  me.  I  spoke  very  hastily,  my 
lords,  last  night,  and  ask  pardon  of  both  of  you.  But  I 
must  not  stay  any  longer,"  says  he,  "gi\ing  imibrage  to  good 
friends,  or  keeping  pretty  girls  away  from  their  homes.  20 
My  Lord  Bishop  hath  found  a  safe  place  for  me,  hard  by  at  a 
curate's  house,  whom  the  Bishop  can  trust,  and  whose  wife 
is  so  ugly  as  to  be  beyond  all  danger;  we  will  decamp  into 
those  new  quarters,  and  I  leave  you,  thanking  you  for  a 
hundred  kindnesses  here.  Where  is  my  hostess,  that  I  may  25 
bid  her  farewell;  to  welcome  her  in  a  house  of  my  own, 
soon  I  trust,  where  my  friends  shall  have  no  cause  to  quarrel 
with  me." 

Lady  Castlewood  arrived  presently,  blushing  with  great 
gi'ace,  and  tears  filling  her  eyes  as  the  Prince  graciously  3° 
saluted  her.  She  looked  so  charming  and  young,  that  the 
Doctor,  in  his  bantering  way,  could  not  help  speaking  of  her 
beauty  to  the  Prince;  whose  comphment  made  her  blush, 
and  look  more  charming  still. 


472  HENRY   ESMOND 


CHAPTER  XII 


A    GREAT   SCHEME,    AND   WHO    BAULKED   IT 

As  characters  written  with  a  secret  ink  come  out  with  the 
application  of  fire,  and  disappear  again  and  leave  the  paper 
white,  so  soon  as  it  is  cool ;  a  hundred  names  of  men,  high  in 
repute  and  favouring  the  Prince's  cause,  that  were  writ  in  our 
5  private  lists,  would  have  been  visible  enough  on  the  great 
roll  of  the  conspiracy,  had  it  ever  been  laid  open  under  the  sun. 
What  crowds  would  have  pressed  forward,  and  subscribed 
their  names  and  protested  their  loj^alty,  when  the  danger 
was  over  !     What  a  number  of  Whigs,  now  high  in  place  and 

10  creatures  of  the  all-powerful  Minister,  scorned  J\Ir.  Walpole 
then  !  If  ever  a  match  was  gained  by  the  manliness  and 
decision  of  a  few  at  a  moment  of  danger;  if  ever  one  was 
lost  by  the  treachery  and  imbecility  of  those  that  had  the 
cards  in  their  hands,  and  might  have  played  them ;    it  was 

15  in  that  momentous  game  which  was  enacted  in  the  next 
three  days,  and  of  which  the  noblest  crown  in  the  world  was 
the   stake. 

From  the  conduct  of  my  Lord  Bolingbroke,  those  who 
were  interested  in  the  scheme  we  had  in  hand,  saw  pretty 

20  well  that  he  was  not  to  be  trusted.  Should  the  Prince 
prevail,  it  was  his  lordship's  gracious  intention  to  declare 
for  him :  should  the  Hannoverian  party  bring  in  their 
sovereign,  who  more  ready  to  go  on  his  knee,  and  cry  God 
save  King  deorge  ?     And  he  betrayed  the  one  Prince  and  the 

25  other ;  l:)ut  exactl}^  at  the  wrong  time  :  when  he  should  have 
struck  for  King  James,  he  faltered  and  coquetted  with  the 
Whigs :  and  having  committed  himself  by  the  most  mon- 
strous professions  of  devotion,  which  the  Elector  rightly 
scorned,  he  proved  the  justness  of  their  contempt  for  him 

30  by  flying  and  taking  rcnegado  service  with  St.  Germains,  just 
when  he  should  have  kept  aloof:  and  that  Court  despised 
him,  as  the  manly  and  resolute  men  who  established  the 
Elector  in  England  had  before  done.  He  signed  his  own 
name  to  every  accusation  of  insincerity  his  enemies  made 


HENRY  ESMOND  473 

against  him;  and  the  King  and  the  Pretender  ahke  could 
show  proofs  of  St.  John's  treachery  under  his  own  hand  and 
seal. 

Our  friends  kept  a  pretty  close  watch  upon  his  motions,  as 
on  those  of  the  brave  and  hearty  Whig  party  that  made  5 
little  concealment  of  theirs.    They  would  have  in  the  Elector, 
and  used  every  means  in  their  power  to  effect  their  end.    My 
Lord  ]\Iarlborough  was  now  with  them.    His  expulsion  from 
power  by  the  Tories  had  thrown  that  great  captain  at  once 
on  the  Whig  side.     We  heard  he  was  coming  from  Antwerp ;  10 
and,  in  fact,  on  the  day  of  the  Queen's  death,  he  once  more 
landed  on  English  shore.     A  great  part  of  the  army  was 
always  with  their  illustrious  leader;  even  the  Tories  in  it 
were  indignant  at  the  injustice  of  the  persecution  which  the 
Whig  officers  were  made   to   undergo.'    The  chiefs  of  these  15 
were   in   London,    and   at   the   head   of    them   one    of    the 
most  intrepid  men  in  the  world,  the  Scots  Duke  of  Argyle, 
whose  conduct  on  the  second  day  after  that  to  which  I  have 
now  brought  down  my  history,  ended,  as  such  honesty  and 
bravery  deser\'ed  to  end,  by  establishing  the  present  Royal  20 
race  on  the  English  throne. 

Meanwhile  there  was  no  slight  difference  of  opinion  amongst 
the  councillors,  surrounding  the  Prince,  as  to  the  plan  his 
Highness  should  pursue.  His  female  minister  at  Court, 
fancying  she  saw  some  amelioration  in  the  Queen,  was  for  25 
waiting  a  few  days,  or  hours  it  might  be,  until  he  could  be 
brought  to  her  bed-side,  and  acknowledged  as  her  heir. 
Mr.  Esmond  was  for  having  him  march  thither,  escorted  by  a 
couple  of  troops  of  Horse  Guards,  and  openly  presenting  himself 
to  the  Council.  During  the  v/hole  of  the  night  of  the  29th-  3° 
30th  July,  the  Colonel  was  engaged  -wath  gentlemen  of  the 
miUtary  profession,  whom  'tis  needless  here  to  name ;  suffice 
it  to  say  that  several  of  them  had  exceeding  high  rank  in 
the  army,  and  one  of  them  in  especial  was  a  General,  who  35 
when  he  heard  the  Duke  of  Marlborough  was  coming  on  the 
other  side,  waved  his  crutch  over  his  head  with  a  huzzah,  at 
the  idea  that  he  should  march  out  and  engage  him.  Of  the 
three  Secretaries  of  State,  we  knew  that  one  was  devoted 
to  us.     The  Governor  of  the  Tower  was  ours :  the  two  com- 


474  HENRY   ESMOND 

panies  on  duty  at  Kensington  barrack  were  safe,  and  we  had 
intelligence,  very  speedy  and  accurate,  of  all  that  took  place 
at  the  Palace  within. 

At  noon,  on  the  30th  of  July,  a  message  came  to  the 
5  Prince's  friends  that  the  Committee  of  Council  was  sitting  at 
Kensington  Palace,  their  Graces  of  Ormonde  and  Shrews- 
bury, the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  and  the  three  Secreta- 
ries of  State  being  there  assembled.  In  an  hour  afterwards 
hurried  news  was  brought  that  the  two  great  Whig   Dukes, 

lo  Argyle  and  Somerset,  had  broke  into  the  Council-Chamber 
without  a  summons,  and  taken  their  seat  at  table.  After 
holding  a  debate  there  the  whole  party  proceeded  to  the 
chamber  of  the  Queen,  who  was  lying  in  great  weakness, 
but  still  sensible,  and  the  Lords  recommended  his  Grace  of 

15  Shrewsbury  as  the  fittest  person  to  take  the  vacant  place  of 
Lord  Treasurer ;  her  Majesty  gave  him  the  staff,  as  all  know. 
"And  now,"  writ  my  messenger  from  Court,  ^^now  or  never 
is  the  time." 

Now  or  never  was  the  time  indeed.     In  spite  of  the  Whig 

20  Dukes,  our  side  had  still  the  majority  in  the  Council,  and 
Esmond,  to  whom  the  message  had  been  brought  (the 
personage  at  Court  not  being  aware  that  the  Prince  had 
quitted  his  lodging  in  Kensington  Square),  and  Esmond's 
gallant  young  aide-de-camp,  Frank  Castle  wood,  putting  on 

25  sword  and  uniform,  took  a  brief  leave  of  their  dear  lad}^,  who 
embraced  and  blessed  them  both ;  and  went  to  her  chamber 
to  pray  for  the  issue  of  the  great  event  which  was  then 
pending. 

Castlcwood  sped  to  the  barrack  to  give  warning  to  the 

30  captain  of  the  Guard  there;  and  then  went  to  the  King's 
Arms  tavern  at  Kensington,  where  our  friends  were  assembled, 
having  come  by  parties  of  twos  and  threes,  riding  or  in  coaches, 
and  were  got  together  in  the  upper  chamber,  fifty-three  of 
them ;    their   servants,   who   had   been   instructed   to   bring 

35  arms  likewise,  being  below  in  the  garden  of  the  tavern,  where 
they  were  served  with  drink.  Out  of  this  garden  is  a  little 
door  that  leads  into  the  road  of  the  Palace,  and  through  this 
it  was  arranged  that  masters  and  servants  were  to  march ; 
when  that  Signal  was  given,  and  That  Personage  appeared. 


HENRY   ESMOND  475 

for  whom  all  were  waiting.  There  was  in  our  company 
the  famous  officer  next  in  command  to  the  Captain-General  of 
the  Forces,  his  Grace  the  Duke  of  Ormonde,  who  was  within 
at  the  Council.  There  were  with  him  two  more  lieutenant- 
generals,  nine  major-generals  and  brigadiers,  seven  colonels,  5 
eleven  peers  of  Parliament,  and  twenty-one  members  of  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  Guard  was  with  us  within  and 
without  the  Palace :  the  Queen  with  us ;  the  Council  (save 
the  two  Whig  Dukes,  that  must  have  succumbed) ;  the 
day  was  our  own,  and  with  a  beating  heart  Esmond  walked  10 
rapidly  to  the  Mall  at  Kensington,  where  he  had  parted  \vith 
the  Prince  on  the  night  before.  For  three  nights  the  Colonel 
had  not  been  to  bed :  the  last  had  been  passed  summoning 
the  Prince's  friends  together,  of  whom  the  great  majority 
had  no  sort  of  inkling  of  the  transaction  pending  until  they  15 
were  told  that  he  was  actually  on  the  spot,  and  were  sum- 
moned to  strike  the  blow.  The  night  before,  and  after  the 
altercation  with  the  Prince,  my  gentleman,  having  suspicions 
of  his  Ptoyal  Highness,  and  fearing  lest  he  should  be  minded 
to  give  us  the  slip,  and  fly  off  after  his  fugitive  beauty,  had  20 
spent,  if  the  truth  must  be  told,  at  the  Greyhound  tavern,  over 
against  my  Lady  Esmond's  house  in  Kensington  Square, 
with  an  eye  on  the  door,  lest  the  Prince  should  escape  from  it. 
The  night  before  that  he  had  passed  in  his  boots,  at  the 
Crown  at  Hounslow,  where  he  must  watch  forsooth  all  night,  25 
in  order  to  get  one  moment's  glimpse  of  Beatrix  in  the  morn- 
ing. And  fate  had  decreed  that  he  was  to  have  a  fourth 
night's  ride  and  wakefulness  before  his  business  was  ended. 

He  ran  to  the  curate's  house  in  Kensington  Mall,  and 
asked  for  Mr.  Bates,  the  name  the  Prince  went  by.  The  3° 
curate's  wife  said  Mr.  Bates  had  gone  abroad  very  earl 3^  in  the 
morning  in  his  boots,  sa^^ing  he  was  going  to  the  Bishop  of 
Rochester's  house  at  Chelsea.  But  the  Bishop  had  been  at 
Kensington  himself  two  hours  ago  to  seek  for  Mr.  Bates,  and 
had  returned  in  his  coach  to  his  own  house,  when  he  heard  35 
that  the  gentleman  was  gone  thither  to  seek  him. 

This  absence  was  most  unpropitious,  for  an  hour's  delay 
might  cost  a  kingdom;  Esmoncl  had  nothing  for  it  but  to 
hasten  to  the  King's  xAj-ms,  and  tell  the  gentlemen  there  as- 


476  HENRY   ESMOND 

sembled,  that  Mr.  George  (as  we  called  the  Prince  there)  was 
not  at  home,  but  that  Esmond  would  go  fetch  him ;  and 
taking  a  general's  coach  that  happened  to  be  there,  Esmond 
drove  across  the  country  to  Chelsea  to  the  Bishop's  house 
5  there. 

The  porter  said  two  gentlemen  were  with  his  lordship,  and 

Esmond  ran  past  the  sentry  up  to  the  locked  door  of  the 

Bishop's  study,  at  which  he  rattled,  and  was  admitted  pres- 

enth^     Of  the  Bishop 's  guests  one  was  a  brother  prelate,  and 

10  the  other  the  Abbe  G . 

"Where  is  Mr.  George?"  says  Mr.  Esmond,  "now  is  the 

time."     The  Bishop  looked  scared;   "I  went  to  his  lodging," 

he  said,  "and  they  told  me  he  was  come  hither.     I  returned 

as  quick  as  coach  would  carry  me;    and  he  hath  not  been 

15  here." 

The  Colonel  burst  out  with  an  oath ;  that  was  all  he  could 

say  to  their  reverences ;  ran  down  the  stairs  again,  and  bidding 

the  coachman,  an  old  friend  and  fellow-campaigner,  drive  as 

if  he  was  charging  the  French  with  his  master  at  Wynendael, 

20  they  were  back  at  Kensington  in  half  an  hour. 

Again  Esmond  went  to  the  curate's  house.  Mr.  George 
had  not  returned.  The  Colonel  had  to  go  with  this  blank 
errand  to  the  gentleman  at  the  King's  Arms,  that  were  grown 
very  impatient  by  this  time. 
25  Out  of  the  window  of  the  tavern,  and  looking  over  the 
garden  wall,  you  can  see  the  green  before  Kensington  Palace, 
the  Palace  gate  (round  which  the  Ministers'  coaches  were 
standing),  and  the  barrack  building.  As  we  were  looking 
out  from  this  window  in  gloomy  discourse,  we  heard  presently 
30  trumpets  blowing,  and  some  of  us  ran  to  the  window  of  the 
front-room,  looking  into  the  High  Street  of  Kensington, 
and  saw  a  regiment  of  Horse  coming. 

"It's  Ormonde's  Guards,"  says  one. 

"No,  by  God,  it's  Argyle's  old  regiment,"  says  my  Gen- 
35  era!,  clapping  down  his  crutch. 

It  was,  indeed,  Argyle's  regiment  that  was  brought  from 
Westminster,  and  that  took  the  place  of  the  regiment  at 
Kensington  on  which  we  could  rely. 

"Oh,  Harry !"  says  one  of  the  generals  there  present,  "yoj 


HENRY   ESMOND  477 

were  born  under  an  unlucky  star ;  I  begin  to  think  that  tiiere's 
no  Mr.  George,  nor  Mr.  Dragon°  either.  Tis  not  the  peerage 
I  care  for,  for  our  name  is  so  ancient  and  famous,  that  merely 
to  be  called  Lord  Lydiard  would  do  me  no  good ;  but  'tis  the 
chance  you  promised  me  of  fighting  Marlborough.''  5 

As  we  were  talking,  Castle  wood  entered  the  room  with  a 
disturbed  air. 

"What  news,  Frank?"  says  the  Colonel,  "is  Mr  George 
coming  at  last?" 

"Damn  him,  look  here,"  says  Castlewood,  holding  out  a  10 
paper;  "I  found  it  in  the  book, — the  what  you  call  it, 
Eikum  Basilikuw°  —  that  villain  Martin  put  it  there,  — 
he  said  his  young  mistress  bade  him.  Jt  was  directed  to  me, 
but  it  was  meant  for  him  I  know,  and  I  broke  the  seal  and 
read  it."  15 

The  whole  assembly  of  officers  seemed  to  swim  aw^ay  before 
Esmond's  eyes  as  he  read  the  paper;  all  that  was  written 
on  it  w^as:  —  "Beatrix  Esmond  is  sent  away  to  prison,  to 
Castlewood,  where  she  will  pray  for  happier  clays." 

"Can  you  guess  where  he  is?"  says  Castlewood.  20 

"Yes,"  says  Colonel  Esmond.  He  knew  full  w^ell,  Frank 
knew  full  well:  our  instinct  told  whither  that  traitor  had 
fled. 

He  had  courage  to  turn  to  the  company  and  say,  "  Gentle- 
men, I  fear  very  much  that  ]\Ir.  George  will  not  be  here  to-day ;  25 
something  hath  happened  —  and  —  and  —  I  very  much  fear 
some  accident  may  befall  him,  which  must  keep  him  out  of 
the  way.  Having  had  your  noon's  draught,  you  had  best  pay 
the  reckoning  and  go  home;  there  can  be  no  game  where 
there  is  no  one  to  play  it."  30 

Some  of  the  gentlemten  went  away  without  a  word,  others 
called  to  pay  their  duty  to  her  Majesty  and  ask  for  her 
health.  The  little  army  disappeared  into  the  darkness 
out  of  which  it  had  been  called ;  there  had  been  no  writings, 
no  paper  to  implicate  any  man.  Some  few  officers  35 
and  Members  of  Parhament  had  been  incited  over-night  to 
breakfast  at  the  King's  Arms,  at  Kensington;  and  they  had 
called  for  their  bill  and  gone  home. 


478  HENRY   ESMOND 

CHAPTER  XIII 

AUGUST    1ST,    1714 

"Does  my  mistress  know  of  this?"  Esmond  asked  oi 
Frank,  as  they  walked  along. 

"My  mother  found  the  letter  in  the  book,  on  the  toilet- 
table.  She  had  writ  it  ere  she  had  left  home,''  Frank  said. 
5  ''Mother  met  her  on  the  stairs,  with  her  hand  upon  the  door, 
trjang  to  enter,  and  never  left  her  after  that  till  she  went 
away.  He  did  not  think  of  looking  at  it  there,  nor  had 
Martin  the  chance  of  telling  him.  I  believe  the  poor  devii 
meant  no  harm,  though  I  half  killed  him  ;  he  thought  'twas  to 
10  Beatrix's  brother  he  was  bringing  the  letter." 

Frank  never  said  a  word  of  reproach  to  me,  for  having 
brought  the  \allain  amongst  us.  As  we  knocked  at  the  door 
I  said,  ''When  will  the  horses  be  ready?"  Frank  pointed  with 
his  cane,  they  were  turning  the  street  that  moment. 
15  We  went  up  and  bade  adieu  to  our  mistress ;  she  was  in  a 
dreadful  state  of  agitation  by  this  time,  and  that  Bishop  was 
with  her  whose  company  she  was  so  fond  of. 

"Did  you  tell  him,  my  lord,"  says  Esmond,  "that  Beatrix 
was  at  Castlewood?"     The  Bishop  blushed  and  stammered: 
20  "Well,"  says  he,   "I  .  .  ." 

"You  served  the  villain  right,"  broke  out   Mr.    Esmond, 
"and  he  has  lost  a  crown  by  what  you  told  him." 

My  mistress  turned  quite  white;  "Henry,  Henry,"  says 
she,  "do  not  kill  him."  . 
^5  " It  may  not  be  too  late,"  says  Esmond ;  "he  may  not  have 
gone  to  Castlewood ;  pray  God,  it  is  not  too  late."  The  Bishop 
was  breaking  out  with  some  banale8°  phrases  about  loyalty 
and  the  sacredness  of  the  Sovereign's  person;  but  Esmond 
sternly  bade  him  hold  his  tongue,  burn  all  papers,  and  take 
30  care  of  Lady  Castlewood ;  and  in  five  minutes  he  and  Frank 
were  in  the  saddle,  John  Lockwood  behind  them,  riding 
towards  Castlewood  at  a  rapid  pace. 

We  were  just  got  to  Alton, °  when  who  should  meet  us  but 
old  Lof'kwood,  the  porter  from  Castlewood,  John's  father, 


HENRY   ESMOND  479 

walking  by  the  side  of  the  Hexton  flying-coach,  who  slept  the 
night  at  Alton.  Lockwood  said  his  young  mistress  had 
arrived  home  on  Wednesday  night,  and  this  morning,  Friday, 
had  despatched  him  with  a  packet  for  my  lady  at  Kensington, 
saying  the  letter  was  of  great  importance.  5 

We  took  the  freedom  to  break  it,  while  Lockwood  stared 
with  wonder,  and  cried  out  his  Lord  bless  me's,  and  Who'd  a 
thought  it's,  at  the  sight  of  his  young  lord  whom  he  had  not 
seen  these  seven  years. 

The  packet  from  Beatrix  contained  no  news  of  importance  10 
at  all,     It  was  written  in  a  jocular  strain,  affecting  to  make 
hght  of  her  captivity,     bhe  asked  whether  she  might  have 
leave  to  visit  Mrs.  Tusher,  or  to  walk  bej^ond  the  com't,  and 
the  garden  wall.     She  gave  news  of  the  peacocks,  and  a  fawn 
she  had  there.     She  bade  her  mother  send  her  certain  gowns  15 
and  smocks  by  old  Lockwood ;  she  sent  her  duty  to  a  certain 
Person,  if  certain  other  persons  permitted  her  to  take  such 
a  freedom ;  how  that  as  she  was  not  able  to  play  cards  with 
him,  she  hoped  he  would  read  good  books,  such  as  Doctor 
Atterbury's  sermons  and  Eikon  Basilike:    she  was  going  to  20 
read  good  books :  ^she  thought  her  prett}"  mamma  would  like 
to  know  she  was  not  crying  her  eyes  out. 

"Who  is  in  the  house  besides  you,  Lockwood?"  says  the 
Colonel. 

"There  be  the  laundry-maid,  and  the  kitchen-maid,  Madam  25 
Beatrix's  maid,  the  man  from  London,  and  that  be  all :  and 
he  sleepeth  in  my  lodge  away  from  the  maids, '^  sa3^s  old 
Lockwood . 

Esmond  scribbled  a  line  with  a  pencil  on  the  note,  giving  it 
to  the  old  man,'and  bidding  him  go  on  to  his  lady.     We  knew  -^o 
w^hy  Beatrix  had  been  so  dutiful  on  a  sudden,  and  why  she 
spoke  of  Eikon  Basilike.     She  writ  this  letter  to  put  the 
Prince  on  the  scent,  and  the  porter  out  of  the  way. 

"We  have  a  fine  moonhght  night  for  riding  on,"  says  Es- 
mond; "Frank,  we  may  reach  Castlewood  in  time  yet."  35 
All  the  waj^  along  they  made  inquiries  at  the  post-houses, 
when  a  tall  young  gentleman  in  a  grey  suit,  with  a  light- 
brown  perriwig,  just  the  colour  of  my  lord's,  had  been  seen  to 
pass.     He  had  set  off  at  six  that  morning,  and  we  at  three 


480  HENRY  ESMOND 

in  the  afternoon.  He  rode  almost  as  quickly  as  we  had  done ; 
he  was  seven  hours  ahead  of  us  still  when  we  reached  the  last 
stage. 

We  rode  over  Castlewood  Downs  before  the  breaking  of 
5  dawn.  We  passed  the  very  spot  where  the  car  was  upset 
fourteen  years  since,  and  Mohun  lay.  The  village  was  not  up 
yet,  nor  the  forge  lighted,  as  we  rode  through  it,  passing  by 
the  elms,  where  the  rooks  were  still  roosting,  and  by  the 
church,  and  over  the  bridge.  We  got  off  our  horses  at  the 
10  bridge  and  walked  up  to  the  gate. 

"If  she  is  safe,'^  says  Frank,  trembling,  and  his  honesit  eyes 
filling  with  tears,  "a  silver  statue  to  Our  Lady  °  !''  He  was 
going  to  rattle  at  the  great  iron  knocker  on  the  oak  gate ;  but 
Esmond  stopped  his  kinsman^s  hand.  He  had  his  own  fears, 
15  his  own  hopes,  his  own  despairs  and  griefs,  too  :  but  he  spoke 
not  a  Tv^ord  of  these  to  his  companion,  or  showed  any  signs 
of  emotion. 

He  went  and  tapped  at  the  little  window  at  the  porter's 
lodge,  gently,  but  repeatedly,  until  the  man  came  to  the 
20  bars. 

"Who's  there?"  says  he,  looking  out;  it  was  the  servant 
from  Kensington. 

"My  Lord  Castlewood  and  Colonel  Esmond,"  we  said,  from 
below.  "Open  the  gate  and  let  us  in  without  any  noise." 
25  " My  Lord  Castlewood  ?"  says  the  other  ;  "my  lord's  here, 
and  in  bed." 

"Open,  d n  you,"  says  Castlewood,  with  a  curse. 

"I  shall  open  to  no  one,"  says  the  man,  shutting  the  glass 
window  as  Frank  drew  a  pistol.  He  would  have  fired  at  the 
30  porter,  but  Esmond  again  held  his  hand. 

"There  are  more  ways  than  one,"  says  he,  "of  entering 
such  a  great  house  as  this."  —  Frank  grumbled  that  the  west 
gate  was  half  a  mile  round.  —  "But  I  know  of  a  way  that's 
not  a  hundred  yards  off,  "  says  Mr.  Esmond ;  and  leading 
35  his  kinsman  close  ak^ng  the  wall,  and  by  the  shrul^s,  whif^h 
had  now  grown  thick  on  what  had  been  an  old  moat  about 
the  house,  they  came  to  the  buttress,  at  the  side  of  which  the 
little  window  was,  which  was  Father  Holt's  i)rivatc  door. 
Esmond  climbed  up  to  this  easily,  broke  a  pane  that  had  been 


HENRY   ESMOND  481 

mended,  and  touched  the  spring  inside,  and  the  two  gentle- 
men passed  in  that  way,  treading  as  hghtly  as  they  could; 
and  so  going  through  the  passage  into  the  court,  over  which 
the  dawn  was  now  reddening,  and  where  the  fountain  plashed 
in  the  silence.  5 

They  sped  instantly  to  the  porter's  lodge,  where  the  fellow 
had  not  fastened  his  door  that  led  into  the  court ;  and  pistol 
in  hand  came  upon  the  terrified  wretch,  and  bade  him  be 
silent.  Then  they  asked  him  (Esmond's  head  reeled,  and 
he  almost  fell  as  he  spoke)  when  Lord  Castle  wood  had  arrived  ?  10 
He  said  on  the  previous  evening,  about  eight  of  the  clock.  — 
"And  what  then?"  —  His  lordship  suppecl  with  his  sister.  — 
"Did  the  man  wait?"  Yes,  he  and  my  lady's  maid,  both 
waited :  the  other  servants  made  the  supper ;  —  and  there 
was  no  wine,  and  they  could  give  his  lordship  but  milk,  at  15 
which  he  grumbled ;  and  —  and  ]\Iadam  Beatrix  kept  Miss 
Lucy  always  in  the  room  w4th  her.  And  there  being  a  bed 
across  the  court  in  the  Chaplain^s  room,  she  had  arranged 
my  lord  was  to  sleep  there.  Madam  Beatrix  had  come  down 
stairs  laughing  with  the  maids,  and  had  locked  herself  in,  20 
and  my  lord  had  stood  for  a  while  talking  to  her  through  the 
door,  and  she  laughing  at  him.  And  then  he  paced  the 
court  a  while,  and  she  came  again  to  the  upper  window;  and 
my  lord  implored  her  to  come  down  and  walk  in  the  room ; 
but  she  would  not,  and  laughed  at  him  again,  and  shut  the  25 
window;  and  so  my  lord  uttering  what  seemed  curses,  but 
in  a  foreign  language,  went  to  the  Chaplain's  room  to  bed. 

''  Was  this  all ?"  —  "All,"  the  man  swore  upon  his  honour, 
"all  as  he  hoped  to  be  saved.  —  Stop,  there  was  one  thing 
more.  My  lord,  on  arriving,  and  once  or  twice  during  supper,  30 
did  kiss  his  sister  as  was  natural,  and  she  kissed  him."  At 
this  Esmond  ground  his  teeth  with  rage,  and  well-nigh 
throttled  the  amazed  miscreant,  who  was  speaking,  whereas 
Castle  wood,  seizing  hold  of  his  cousin's  hand,  burst  into  a 
great  fit  of  laughter.  35 

"If  it  amuses  thee,"  says  Esmond  in  French,  "that  your 
sister  should  be  exchanging  of  kisses  with  a  stranger,  I  fear 
poor  Beatrix  will  give  thee  plenty  of  sport."  —  Esmond 
darkly  thought,   how  Hamilton,   Ashburnham,   had   before 


482  HENRY   ESMOND 

been  masters  of  those  roses  that  the  young  Prince's  hps  were 
now  feeding  on.  He  sickened  at  that  notion.  Her  cheek 
was  desecrated,  her  beauty  tarnished;  shame  and  honour 
stood  between  it  and  him.  The  love  was  dead  within  him ; 
5  had  she  a  crown  to  bring  him  with  her  love,  he  felt  that  both 
would  degrade  him. 

But  this  wrath  against  Beatrix  did  not  lessen  the  angry 
feelings  of  the  Colonel  against  the  man  who  had  been  the 
occasion  if  not  the  cause  of  the  evil.     Frank  sat  down  on  a 

lo  stone  bench  in  the  courtyard,  and  fairly  fell  asleep,  while 
Esmond  paced  up  and  down  the  court,  debating  what  should 
ensue.  What  mattered  how  much  or  how  Httle  had  passed 
between  the  Prince  and  the  poor  faithless  girl  ?  They  were 
arrived  in  time  perhaps  to  rescue  her  person,  but  not  her  mind ; 

15  had  she  not  instigated  the  young  Prince  to  come  to  her;  sub- 
orned servants,  dismissed  others,  so  that  she  might  com- 
municate with  him  ?  The  treacherous  heart  within  her  had 
surrendered,  though  the  place  was  safe;  and  it  was  to  win 
this  that  he  had  given  a  life's  struggle  and  devotion ;   this, 

20  that  she  was  ready  to  give  away  for  the  bribe  of  a  coronet  or 
a  wink  of  the  Prince's  eye. 

When  he  had  thought  his  thoughts  out  he  shook  up  poor 
Frank  from  his  sleep,  who  rose  yawning,  and  said  he  had  been 
dreaming  of  Clotilda  :  —  "You  must  back  me,"  says  Esmond, 

25  "  in  what  I  am  going  to  do.  I  have  been  thinking  that  yonder 
scoundrel  may  have  been  instructed  to  tell  that  story,  and 
that  the  whole  of  it  may  be  a  he  :  if  it  be,  we  shall  find  it  out 
from  the  gentleman  who  is  asleep  yonder.  See  if  the  door 
leading  to  my  lady's  rooms  "  (so  we  called  the  rooms  at  the 

30  north-west  angle  of  the  house),  —  ''see  if  the  door  is  barred 
as  he  saith."  We  tried;  it  was  indeed  as  the  lacciuey  had 
said,  closed  within. 

"It  may  have  been  open  and  shut  afterwards,"  says  poor 
Esmond,  "the  foundress  of  our  family  let  our  ancestor  in  in 

35  that  way." 

"  What  will  you  do,  Harry,  if  —  if  what  that  fellow  saith 
should  turn  out  untrue  ?"  The  young  man  looked  scared  and 
frighlcned  into  his  kinsman's  face  :  I  dare  say  it  wore  no  very 
pleasant  exj)ression. 


HENRY  ESMOND  483 

"Let  us  first  go  see  whether  the  two  stories  agree/'  says 
Esmond :  and  went  in  at  the  passage  and  opened  the  door 
into  what  had  been  his  own  chamber  now  for  weli-nigh 
five-and-twenty  years.  A  candle  was  still  burning,  and  the 
Prince  asleep  dressed  on  the  bed  —  Esmond  did  not  care  for  5 
making  a  noise.  The  Prince  started  up  in  his  bed,  seeing 
two  men  in  his  chamber:  "Qui  est  la°?''  says  he,  and  took 
a  pistol  from  under  his  pillow. 

"It  is  the  Marciuis  of  Esmond,^'  says  the  Colonel,  "come  to 
welcome  his  Majesty  to  his  house  of  Castle  wood,  and  to  re-  lo 
port  of  what  hath  happened  in  London.  Pursuant  to  the 
King's  orders,  I  passed  the  night  before  last,  after  leaving 
his  Majesty,  in  waiting  upon  the  friends  of  the  King.  It  is  a 
pity  that  his  Majesty's  desire  to  see  the  country  and  to  visit 
our  poor  house  shoukl  have  caused  the  King  to  quit  London  15 
without  notice  yesterday,  when  the  opportunity  happened 
which  in  all  human  probabihty  may  not  occur  again;  and 
had  the  King°  not  chosen  to  ride  to  Castlewood,  the  Prince 
of  Wales  might  have  slept  at  St.  James's." 

"  'Sdeath !    gentlemen,"  says  the  Prince,  starting  off  his  20 
bed,  whereon  he  was  lying  in  his  clothes,  "the  Doctor  was 
with  me  yesterday  morning,  and  after  watching  by  my  sister 
all  night,  told  me  I  might  not  hope  to  see  the  Queen." 

"  It  would  have  been  otherwise,"  says  Esmond  with  another 
bow;  "as,  by  this  time,  the  Queen  may  be  dead  in  spite  of  25 
the  Doctor.  —  The  Council  was  met,  a  new  Treasurer  was 
appointed,  the  troops  were  devoted  to  the  King's  cause ;  and 
fifty  loyal  gentlemen  of  the  greatest  names  of  this  kingdom 
were  assembled  to  accompany  the  Prince  of  Wales,  who 
might  have  been  the  acknowledged  heir  of  the  throne,  or  3° 
the  possessor  of  it  by  this  time,  had  your  Majesty  not  chosen 
to  take  the  air.  We  were  ready ;  there  was  only  one  person 
that  failed  us,  your  Majesty's  gracious " 

"Morbleu,°  Monsieur,  you  give  me  too  much  Majesty," 
said  the  Prince ;    who  had  now  risen  up  and  seemed  to  be  35 
looking  to  one  of  us  to  help  him  to  his  coat.     But  neither 
stirred. 

"We  shall  take  care,"  says  Esmond,  "not  much  oftener  to 
offend  in  that  particular." 


484  HENRY  ESMOND 

"A^liat  mean  you,  my  lord  ?  "  says  the  Prince,  and  muttere<i 
something  about  a  giict-a-pens°  which  Esmond  caught  up. 

''The  snare,  sir,"  says  he,  "was  not  of  our  laying;  it  is  not 
we  that  invited  you.     We  came  to  avenge,  and  not  to  com- 
5  pass,  the  dishonour  of  our  family.'' 

"Dishonour!  Morbleu,  there  has  been  no  dishonour," 
says  the  Prince,  turning  scarlet,  "only  a  little  harmless 
playing." 

"That  was  meant  to  end  seiiously." 
10      "I  swear,"  the  Prince  broke  out  impetuously,  "upon  the 
honour  of  a  gentleman,  my  lords " 

"That  we  arrived  in  time.  No  wrong  hath  been  done, 
Frank,"  says  Colonel  Esmond,  turning  round  to  young 
Castlewood,  who  stood  at  the  door  as  the  talk  was  going  on. 
15  "See!  here  is  a  paper  whereon  his  Majesty  hath  deigned  to 
commence  some  verses  in  honour,  or  dishonour,  of  Beatrix. 
Here  is  'Madame'  and  'Flamme,'  'Cruelle'  and  'Rebelle,' 
and  '  Amour '  and  'Jour,°'  in  the  Royal  writing  and  speUing. 
Had  the  Gracious  lover  been  happy,  he  had  not  passed  his 
20  time  in  sighing."  In  fact,  and  actually  as  he  was  speaking, 
Esmond  cast  his  eyes  down  towards  the  table,  and  saw  a 
paper  on  which  my  young  Prince  had  been  scrawling  a 
madrigal,  that  was  to  finish  his  charmer  on  the  morrow. 

"Sir," says  the  Prince,  burning  with  rage  (he  had  assumed 
25  his  Ptoyal  coat  unassisted  by  this  time),  "did  I  come  here  to 
receive  insults?" 

"To  confer  them,  may  it  please  your  Majesty,"  says  the 
Colonel,  with  a  very  low  bow,  "and  the  gentlemen  of  our 
family  are  come  to  thank  you." 
30  "I\Ialediction° !"  says  the  young  man,  tears  starting  into 
his  eyes,  with  helpless  rage  and  mortification.  "What  will 
you  with  me,   gentlemen?" 

"If  your  Majesty  will  please  to  enter  the  next  apartment," 
says  Esmond,  i^reserving  his  gi'ave  tone,  "I  have  some 
35  pajjers  there  which  I  would  gladly  submit  to  you,  and  by 
your  permission  I  will  lead  the  way;"  and  taking  tlie  taper 
up,  and  l^acking  befoi-e  the  Prince  with  very  great  ceremony, 
Mr.  Esmond  passed  into  tlie  little  Chaplain's  room,  through 
which  we  had   just  entered  into  the   house:  —  "Please  to 


I 


HENRY  ESMOND  485 

set  a  chair  for  his  Majesty,  Frank,"  says  the  Colonel  to  his 
companion,  who  wondered  almost  as  much  at  this  scene, 
and  was  as  much  puzzled  by  it,  as  the  other  actor  in  it. 
Then  going  to  the  crypt  over  the  mantelpiece,  the  Colonel 
opened  it,  and  drew  thence  the  papers  which  so  long  had  5 
lain  there. 

"Here,  may  it  please  your  Majesty,"  says  he,  "is  the 
Patent  of  Marquis  sent  over  by  your  Royal  Father  at  St. 
Germains  to  Viscount  Castlewood,  my  father :  here  is  the 
witnessed  certificate  of  my  father's  marriage  to  my  mother,  10 
and  of  my  birth  and  christening;  I  was  christened  of  that 
religion  of  which  your  sainted  sire  gave  all  through  life  so 
shining  an  example.  These  are  my  titles,  dear  Frank,  and  this 
what  I  do  with  them :  here  go  Baptism  and  Marriage,  and 
here  the  Marcjuisate  and  the  August  Sign-]\Ianual,  with  15 
which  your  predecessor  was  pleased  to  honour  our  race." 
And  as  Esmond  spoke  he  set  the  papers  burning  in  the 
brazier.  "You  will  please,  sir.  to  remember,"  he  continued, 
"that  our  family  hath  ruined  itself  by  fidelity  to  yours: 
that  my  grandfather  spent  his  estate,  and  gave  his  blood  and  20 
his  son  to  die  for  your  service ;  that  my  dear  lord's  grand- 
father (for  lord  you  are  now,  Frank,  by  right  and  title  too) 
died  for  the  same  cause;  that  my  poor  kinswoman,  my 
father's  second  wife,  after  giving  away  her  honour  to  your 
wicked  perjured  race,  sqnt  all  her  wealth  to  the  King:  and  25 
got  in  return  that  precious  title  that  lies  in  ashes,  and  this 
inestimable  yard  of  blue  ribbon.  I  lay  this  at  your  feet 
and  stamp  upon  it :  I  draw  this  sword,  and  break  it°  and 
deny  you ;  and  had  you  completed  the  wrong  you  designed 
us,  by  Heaven,  I  would  have  driven  it  through  your  heart,  30 
and  no  more  pardoned  you  than  your  father  pardoned 
Monmouth. °     Frank  will  do  the  same,  won't  you,  cousin?" 

Frank,  who  had  been  looking  on  with  a  stupid  air  at  the 
papers  as  they  flamed  in  the  old  brazier,  took  out  his  sword 
and  broke  it,  holding  his  head  down  :  —  "  I  go  with  my  cousin,''  35 
says  he,  giving  Esmond  a  grasp  of  the  hand.     "Marquis  or 

not,  by ,  I  stand  by  him  any  day.     I  beg  your  Majesty's 

pardon  for  swearing;  that  is  —  that  is  —  I'm  for  the  Elec- 
tor of  Hannover.     It's  all  your  Majesty's  own  fault.     The 


486  HENJtT  ESMOND 

Queen's  dead  most  likely  by  this  time.     And  you  might 
have  been  IGng  if  you  hadn't  come  dangUng  after  'Trix." 

"Thus  to  lose  a  crown/'  says  the  young  Prince,  starting 
up,  and  speaking  French  in  his  eager  way;    'Ho  lose  the 

5  loveliest  woman  in  the  world;  to  lose  the  loyalty  of  such 
hearts  as  yours,  is  not  this,  my  lords,  enough  of  humiliation  ? 
—  Marquis,  if  I  go  on  my  knees,  will  you  pardon  me  ?  — ■ 
No,  I  can't  do  that,  but  I  can  offer  you  reparation,  that  of 
honour,   that   of   gentlemen.     Favour   me   by   crossing   the 

lo  sword  with  mine :  yours  is  broke  —  see,  yonder  in  the 
armoire°  are  two;"  and  the  Prince  took  them  out  as  eager 
as  a  boy,  and  held  them  towards  Esmond:  —  ''Ah!  you 
will?     Merci,  monsieur,  merci°!" 

Extremely  touched  by  this  immense  mark  of  condescension 

15  and  repentance  for  wrong  done.  Colonel  Esmond  bowed 
down  so  low,  as  almost  to  kiss  the  gracious  young  hand  that 
conferred  on  him  such  an  honour,  and  took  his  guard  in 
silence.  The  swords  were  no  sooner  met,  than  Castlewood 
knocked  up  Esmond's  with  the  blade  of  his  own,  which  he 

20  had  broke  off  short  at  the  shell ;  and  the  Colonel  falling  back 
a  step  dropped  his  point  with  another  very  low  bow,  and 
declared  himself  perfectly  satisfied. 

"Eh  bien,°  Vicomte!"  says  the  young  Prince,  who  was  a 
boy,  and  a  French  boy,  "il  ne  nous  reste  qu'une  chose  k 

25  faire ; "  he  placed  his  sword  upon  the  table,  and  the  fingers 
of  his  two  hands  upon  his  breast :  —  "We  have  one  more 
thing  to  do,"  says  he,  "you  do  not  divine  it?"  He  stretched 
out  his  arms  :  —  "  Embrassons  nous°  ! " 

The  talk  was  scarce  over  when  Beatrix  entered  the  room  :  — 

30  What  came  she  to  seek  there  ?     She  started  and  turned  pale 

at  the  sight  of  her  brother  and  kinsman,  drawn  swords,  broken 

sword-blades,  and  papers    yet  smouldering  in    the    brazier. 

"Charming  Beatrix,"  says  the  Prince,  with  a  blush  which 

became  him  very  well,  "these  lords  have  come  a  horse-back 

35  from  London,  where  my  sister  lies  in  a  despaired  state,  and 
where  her  successor  makes  himself  desired.  Pardon  me  for 
my  escai)adc  of  last  evening.  I  had  been  so  long  a  prisoner, 
that  I  .S(;ized  the  occasion  of  a  ])romonade  on  liorse-back, 
and  my  horses  naturally  bore  me  towards  you.     I  found  you 


HENRY   ESMOND  487 

a  Queen  in  your  little  Court,  where  you  deigned  to  entertain 
me.  Present  my  homages  to  your  Maids  of  Honour.  I 
sighed  as  you  slept,  under  the  window  of  your  chamber, 
and  then  retired  to  seek  rest  in  my  own.  It  was  there  that 
those  gentlemen  agreeably  roused  me.  Yes,  milords,  for  5 
that  is  a  happy  day  that  makes  a  Prince  acquainted,  at 
whatever  cost  to  his  vanity,  with  such  a  noble  heart  as  that 
of  the  ]\Iarquis  of  Esmond.  Mademoiselle,  may  we  take 
your  coach  to  town?  I  saw  it  in  the  hangar,  and  this  poor 
Marquis  must  be  dropping  with  sleep. '^  lo 

"Will  it  please  the  King  to  breakfast  before  he  goes?" 
was  all  Beatrix  could  say.  The  roses  had  shuddered  out  of 
her  cheeks;  her  eyes  were  glaring;  she  looked  quite  old. 
She  came  up  to  Esmond  and  hissed  out  a  word  or  two :  — 
''If  I  did  not  love  you  before,  cousin, "-says  she,  "think  how  15 
I  love  you  now."  If  words  could  stab,  no  doubt  she  would 
have  killed  Esmond;    she  looked  at  him  as  if  she   could. 

But  her  keen  w^ords  gave  no  wound  to  Mr.  Esmond;  his 
heart  was  too  hard.  As  he  looked  at  her,  he  wondered  that 
he  could  ever  have  loved  her.  His  love  of  ten  years  was  20 
over,  it  fell  down  dead  on  the  spot,  at  the  Kensington  Tavern, 
where  Frank  brought  him  the  note  out  of  Eikon  Basilike. 
The  Prince  blushed  and  bowed  low,  as  she  gazed  at  him,  and 
quitted  the  chamber.   1°  have  never  seen  her  from  that  day. 

Horses  were  fetched  and  put  to   the   chariot   presently.  25 
My  lord  rode  outside,  and  as  for  Esmond,  he  was  so  tired  that 
he  was  no  sooner  in  the  carriage,  than  he  fell  asleep  and 
never  woke  till  night,  as  the  coach  came  into  Alton. 

As  we  drove  to  the  Bell  Inn  comes  a  mitred  coach  with  our 
old  friend  Lockwood  beside  the  coachman.  My  Lady  Castle-  30 
wood  and  the  Bishop  were  inside;  she  gave  a  little  scream 
when  she  saw  us.  The  two  coaches  entered  the  inn  almost 
together;  the  landlord  and  people  coming  out  with  lights  to 
welcome  the  visitors. 

We  in  our  coach  sprang  out  of  it,  as  soon  as  ever  we  saw  35 
the  dear  lady,   and  above  all,  the  Doctor  in  his   cassock: 
What  was  the  news  ?     Was  there  yet  time  ?     Was  the  Queen 
alive?     These    ofuestions   were   put   hurriedly,    as    Boniface 
stood  waiting  before  his  noble  guests  to  bow  them  up  the  stair. 


488  HENRY   ESMOND 

"Is  she  safe?"  was  what  Lady  Castlewood  whispered  ii\ 
a  flutter  to  Esmond. 

"All's  well,  thank  God/'  sa3^s  he,  as  the  fond  lady  took  his 
hand  and  kissed  it,  and  called  him  her  preserver  and  her 
5  dear.     She  wasn't  thinking  of  Queens  and  crowns. 

The  Bishop's  news  was  reassuring:  at  least  all  was  not 
lost;  the  Queen  yet  breathed  or  was  alive  when  they  left 
London,  six  hours  since.  ("It  was  Lady  Castlewood  who 
insisted  on  coming,"  the  Doctor  said.)  Argyle  had  marched 
10  up  regiments  from  Portsmouth,  and  sent  abroad  for  more ; 
the  Whigs  were  on  the  alert,  a  pest  on  them  (I  am  not  sure 
but  the  Bishop  swore  as  he  spoke),  and  so  too  were  our 
people.  And  all  might  be  saved,  if  only  the  Prince  could 
be  at  London  in  time.  We  called  for  horses,  instantly  to 
15  return  to  London.  We  never  went  up  poor  crest-fallen 
Boniface's  stairs, °  but  into  our  coaches  again.  The  Prince 
and  his  Prime  ]\linister°  in  one,  Esmond  in  the  other  with 
only  his  dear  mistress  as  a  companion. 

Castlewood  galloped  forwards  on  horseback  to  gather  the 

20  Prince's  friends,  and  warn  them  of  his  coming.     We  travelled 

through  the  night.     Esmond  discoursing  to  his  mistress  of 

the  events  of  the  last  twenty-four  hours;    of  Castlewood's 

ride  and  his;    of  the- Prince's  generous  behaviour  and  their 

reconciliation.     The   night  seemed  short  enough;    and  the 

25  starlit  hours  passed  away  serenely  in  that  fond  company. 

So  we  came  along  the  road;    the  Bishop's  coach  heading 

ours ;   and,  with  some  delays  in  procuring  horses,  we  got  to 

Hammersmith^  about  four  o'clock  on  Sunday  morning,  the 

1st  of  August,  and  half  an  hour  after,  it  being  then  bright 

30  day,  we  rode  by  my  Lady  Warwick's  house,  °  and  so  down 

the  street  of  Kensington. 

l*]arly  as  the  hour  was,  there  was  a  bustle  in  the  street, 
and  many  people  moving  to  and  fro.  Round  the  gate  lead- 
ing to  the  Palace,  where  the  guard  is,  there  was  especially 
35  a  great  crowd.  And  the  coach  ahead  of  us  stopped,  and  the 
Bisliop's  man  got  down  to  know  what  the  concourse 
meant  ? 

Tlicre  i)resently  came  from  out  of  tlie  gate,  Horse  Guards 
with  their  trum[)ets,  and  a  company  of  heralds,  with  their 


HENRY   ESMOND  489 

tabards.  °  The  trumpets  blew,  and  the  herald-at-arms 
came  forward  and  proclaimed  George,  °  by  the  grace  of 
God,  of  Great  Britain,  France  and  Ireland,  King,  Defender 
of  the  Faith.     And  the  people  shouted,  God  save  the  King. 

Among  the  crowd  shouting  and  waving  their  hats,  I  caught  5 
sight  of  one  sad  face,  which  I  had  known  all  my  life,  and 
seen  under  many  disguises.  It  was  no  other  than  poor  Mr, 
Holt's,  who  had  shpped  over  to  England  to  witness  the 
triumph  of  the  good  cause;  and  now  beheld  its  enemies 
victorious,  amidst  the  acclamations  of  the  EngUsh  people.  10 
The  poor  fellow  had  forgot  to  huzzah  or  to  take  his  hat  off, 
until  his  neighbours  in  the  crowd  remarked  his  want  of 
loyalty,  and  cursed  him  for  a  Jesuit  in  disguise,  when  he 
ruefully  uncovered  and  began  to  cheer.  Sure  he  was  the 
most  unlucky  of  men  :  he  never  played  a  game  but  he  lost  it ;  15 
or  engaged  in  a  conspiracy  but  'twas  certain  to  end  in 
defeat.  I  saw  him  in  Flanders  after  this,  whence  he  went 
to  Rome  to  the  head-quarters  of  his  Order;  and  actually 
reappeared  amv^ng  us  in  America,  very  old,  and  busy,  and 
hopeful.  I  am  not  sure  that  he  did  not  assume  the  hatchet  20 
and  moccasins  there;  and,  attired  in  a  blanket  and  war- 
paint, skulk  about  a  ^Missionary  amongst  the  Indians.  He 
lies  buried  in  our  neighbouring  province  of  ^laryland  now, 
with  a  cross  over  him,  and  a  mound  of  earth  above  him; 
under  which  that  unciuiet  spirit  is  for  ever  at  peace.  25 

With  the  sound  of  King  George's  trumpets,  all  the  vain 
hopes  of  the  weak  and  foolish  young  Pretender  were  blown 
away;  and  with  that  musick,  too,  I  may  say,  the  drama 
of  my  own  life  was  ended.  That  happiness,  which  hath 
subsequently  crowned  it,  cannot  be  written  in  words;  'tis  30 
of  its  nature  sacred  and  secret,  and  not  to  be  spoken  of, 
though  the  heart  be  ever  so  full  of  thankfulness,  save  to 
Heaven  and  the  One  Ear  alone  —  to  one  fond  being,  the 
truest  and  tenderest  and  purest  wife  ever  man  was  blessed 
with.  As  I  think  of  the  immense  happiness  which  was  in  35 
store  for  me,  and  of  the  depth  and  intensity  of  that  love, 
which,  for  so  many  years,  hath  blessed  me,  I  own  to  a  trans- 
port of  wonder  and  gratitude  for  such  a  boon  —  nay,  am 


490  HENRY   ESMOND 

thankful  to  have  been  endowed  with  a  heart  capable  oi 
feeling  and  knowing  the  immense  beauty  and  value  of  the 
gift  which  God  hath  bestowed  upon  me.  Sure,  love  vincii 
omnia° ;  is  immeasurably  above  all  ambition,  more  precious 
5  than  wealth,  more  noble  than  name.  He  knows  not  life 
w^ho  knows  not  that :  he  hath  not  felt  the  highest  faculty 
of  the  soul  who  hath  not  enjoyed  it.  In  the  name  of  my 
wife  I  write  the  completion  of  hope,  and  the  summit  of 
happiness.     To  have  such  a  love  is  the  one  blessing,  in  com- 

lo  parison  of  which  all  earthly  joy  is  of  no  value ;  and  to  think 
of  her,  is  to  praise  God. 

It  was  at  Bruxelles,  whither  we  retreated  after  the  failure  of 
our  plot  —  our  Whig  friends  advising  us  to  keep  out  of  the 
way,  —  that  the  great  joy  of  my  life  was  bestowed  upon  me, 

15  and  that  my  dear  mistress  became  my  wife.  We  had  been 
so  accustomed  to  an  extreme  intimacy  and  confidence,  and 
had  lived  so  long  and  tenderly  together,  that  we  might  have 
gone  on  to  the  end  without  thinking  of  a  closer  tie ;  but  cir- 
cumstances brought  about  that  event,  which  so  prodigiously 

20  multiplied  my  happiness  and  hers  (for  which  I  humbly 
thank  Heaven),  although  a  calamity  befell  us,  which,  I 
blush  to  think,  hath  occurred  more  than  once  in  our  house. 
I  know  not  what  infatuation  of  ambition  urged  the  beautiful 
and  wayward  woman,  whose  name  hath  occupied  so  many  of 

25  these  pages,  and  who  was  served  by  me  with  ten  years  of 
such  a  constant  fidelity  and  passion;  but  ever  after  that 
day  at  Castle  wood,  when  we  rescued  her,  she  persisted  in 
holding  all  her  family  as  her  enemies,  and  left  us,  and  escaped 
to  France,  to  what  a  fate  I  disdain  to  tell.     Nor  was  her 

30  son's  house  a  home  for  my  dear  mistress;  my  poor  Frank 
was  weak  as  perhaps  all  our  race  hath  been  and  led  by  women. 
Those  around  him  were  imperious,  and  in  a  terror  of  his 
mother's  influence  over  him,  lest  he  should  recant,  and 
deny  the  creed  which  he  had  adopted  by  their  persuasion. 

35  The  differen(;e  of  their  religion  separated  the  son  and  the 
mother :  my  dearest  mistress  felt  that  she  was  severed  from 
her  chiklren  and  alone  in  the  world  —  alone  but  for  one 
constant  servant  on  -whose  fidelity,  praised  be  Heaven,  she 
could  (rount.     'Twas  after  a  scene  of  ignoble  quarrel  on  the 


HENRY  ESMOND  491 

part  of  Frank's  wife  and  mother  (for  the  poor  lad  had  been 
made  to  marry  the  whole  of  that  German"  family  with  whom 
he  had  connected  himself),  that  I  found  my  mistress  one  day 
in  tears,  and  then  besought  her  to  confide  herself  to  the  care 
and  devotion  of  one  who,  by  God's  help,  would  never  forsake  5 
her.  And  then  the  tender  matron,  as  beautiful  in  her  autumn, 
and  as  pure  as  virgins  in  their  spring,  with  blushes  of  love 
and  "eyes  of  meek  surrender,"  yielded  to  my  respectful  im- 
portunity, and  consented  to  share  my  home.  Let  the  last 
words  I  write  thank  her,  and  bless  her  who  hath  blessed  it.      10 

By  the  kindness  of  Mr.  Addison,  all  danger  of  prosecution, 
and  every  obstacle  against  our  return  to  England  was  re- 
moved; and  my  son°  Frank's  gallantry  in  Scotland  made 
his  peace  with  the  King's  government.  But  we  two  cared 
no  longer  to  live  in  England;  and  Frank  formally  and  joy-  15 
fully  yielded  over  to  us  the. possession  of  that  estate,  which  we 
now  occupy,  far  away  from  Europe  and  its  troubles,  on  the 
beautiful  banks  of  the  Potomac,  where  we  have  built  a  new 
Castle  wood,  and  think  with  grateful  hearts  of  our  old  hom.e. 
In  our  transatlantick  country  we  have  a  season,  the  calmest  20 
and  most  delightful  of  the  year,  which  we  call  the  Indian 
summer :  I  often  say  the  autumn  of  our  life  resembles  that 
happy  and  serene  weather :  and  am  thankful  for  its  rest  and 
its  sweet  sunshine.  Heaven  hath  blessed  us  with  a  child, 
which  each  parent  loves  for  her  resemblance  to  the  other.  25 
Our  diamonds  are  turned  into  ploughs  and  axes  for  our 
plantations;  and  into  negroes,  the  happiest  and  merriest, 
I  think,  in  all  this  country:  and  the  only  jewel  b}^  which 
my  wife  sets  any  store,  and  from  which  she  hath  never  parted, 
is  that  gold  button  she  took  from  my  arm  on  the  day  when  30 
she  visited  me  in  prison,  and  which  she  wore  ever  after, 
as  she  told  me,  on  the  tenderest  heart  in  the  world. 


I 


TO    THE    RIGHT    HONOURABLE 

WILLIAM   BINGHAM,   LORD   ASHBURTON° 

My  dear   Lord, 

The  writer  of  a  book  which  copies  the  manners  and 
language  of  Queen  Anne's  time,  must  not  omit  the  Dedication 
to  the  Patron° ;  and  I  ask  leave  to  inscribe  these  volumes® 
to  your  Lordship  for  the  sake  of  the  great  kindness  and 
friendship  which  I  owe  to  you  and  yours. 

My  volumes  will  reach  you  when  the  Author  is  on  his 

voyage °  to  a  country  where  your  name  is  as  well  known  as 

here.     Wherever  I  am,  I  shall  gratefully  regard  you;    and 

shall  not  be  the  less  welcomed  in  America  because  I  am 

Your  obliged  friend  and  servant, 

W.   M.   THACKERAY. 

London,  October  18,  1852. 


493 


NOTES 

No  edition  of  "Esmond,"  to  the  editor's  knowledge,  has  be- 
fore attempted  the  great  labor  of  following  Thackeray  in  his 
reading  in  eighteenth-century  literature  and  tracing  the  almost 
countless  number  of  references  and  allusions  (and  even  con- 
tradictions) the  novelist  indulges  in,  often  needlessly,  in  osten- 
sibly creating  an  historical  setting  for  his  masterpiece.  For 
this  reason  these  notes  are  perhaps  both  more  frequent  and 
more  minute  than  they  otherwise  would  have  been. 

Whatever  their  deficiencies,  the  editor  has  at  least  the  satis- 
faction of  knowing  that  he  has  been  helpful  to  the  pupil  who 
may  care  to  learn  more  of  these  things  and  to  the  future  editor, 
who  will  find  it  an  easy  matter  to  make  use  of  these  notes  in 
preparing  his  own  work. 

Title-page.  Written  By  Himself,  This  pretence  of  memoirs 
was  a  favorite  device  of  Thackeray's.  The  Yellow-plush  Papers 
were  in  the  nature  of  "Correspondence,"  and  Thackeray's 
historical  masterpiece  in  burlesque,  Barry  Lyndon,  purported 
to  be  memoirs  "written  by  himself." 

servetur  ad  imum 
Qualis  ah  incepto  processerit,  et  sibi  constet. 

Let  [the  character]  be  presen/ed  to  the  end 
Just  as  it  began,  and  be  consistent  with  itself. 

—  Horace,  Ars  Poetica,  11.  126,  127. 

Preface,  xxiii.  Thackeray  supposes  this  to  have  been 
written  by  Rachel,  the  only  child  of  Henry  Esmond.  Esmond  is 
supposed  to  have  migrated  to  the  colony  of  Virginia  in  1718, 
after  the  adventures  narrated  in  this  volume,  to  the  new  estate 
of  Castlewood,  "given  to  our  ancestors  by  King  Charles  the 
First."     This  daughter,  Rachel  Esmond,  was  married  to  a  Mr. 


496  HENRY   ESMOND 

Warrington,  described,  p.  xxvii,  as  "the  younger  son  of  a  Suffolk 
Baronet"  and  the  ancestor  of  the  Warringtons  already  treated 
in  Thackeray's  earlier  novel,  Pendennis  (1848-1850).  She  be- 
came the  mother  of  George  and  Henry  Warrington,  the  two 
heroes  of  Thackeray's  later  novel,  The  Virginians  (1857-1859), 

"Rachel  Esmond  Warrington"  is  thus  supposed  to  edit  the 
Memoirs  of  her  father  as  well  as  to  add  the  Preface,  dated, 
"Castlewood,  Virginia,  November  3,  1778,"  in  the  midst  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  in  which  her  two  sons  fought  on  different 
sides  —  one  "wearing  the  King's  colours"  and  the  other  "the 
Republick's"  (p.  xxiv).  In  writing  this  Preface  (in  1852)  it 
is  clear  that  Thackeray  had  already  in  mind  the  plan,  although 
not  yet  the  details,  of  his  later  work,  Tlue  Virginians. 

xxiii :  2.  our.  The  first  personal  pronoun  is  used  in  the  first 
line  as  denoting  the  form  of  memoirs  in  which  the  novel  is  cast. 
So  below,  1.  28,  "here  in  our  Republick,"  and  often.  But  there 
is  no  real  consistency,  and  Thackeray,  as  soon  as  he  gets  warmed 
up  to  his  story,  turns  from  the  first  to  the  third  person  at  will. 

xxiii  :  4.  Westmoreland  county,  located  "  between  the  rivers 
Potomac  and  Rappahannoc,"  in  northern  Tidewater  Virginia, 
was  chosen,  as  the  county  where  Washington  was  born  and  which 
was  noted  for  its  colonial  society.  This  explains  "our  friend, 
Mr.  Washington,"  on  the  next  page,  the  Preface  being  given 
the  date  "1778."  The  treatment  of  "Mr.  Washington"  in 
this  story  was  the  cause  of  a  criticism  of  Thackeray  on  the 
part  of  the  New  York  correspondent  of  the  London  Times, 
dated  "New  York,  November  8  [1853]"  to  which  Thackeray 
manfully  replied  in  a  letter  to  the  Times  of  November  23,  1853. 

xxiii  :  28.  Republick.  The  older  spelling  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  ending  in  k,  is  purposely  retained.  Cf .  xivi :  24,  satirick, 
etc.,  throughout.  So  20 :  28,  holyday,  showing  the  origin  of  the 
word,  when  we  write  "  holiday  ";  23  :  22,  sate  for  "  sat  ";  28:  3, 
cypher;.  59:21,  gaoler.  Similar  is  the  use  of  "fetch"  and  of 
the  auxiliary  "be,"  instead  of  "  have,"  with  intransitive  verbs 
like  "  go/' 


NOTES  497 

XXV  :  3.  when  the  French  came  to  this  country  with 
Monsieur  Rochambeau.  Count  Rochambeau  brought  his 
French  troops  to  America  to  help  General  Washington  in  178^- 
and  assisted  in  the  final  victory  at  Yorktown,  October,  1781. 
Yet  this  Preface  is  suppose  to  be  written  in  1778. 

XXV  :  14.  that  dreadful  siege  of  our  house  by  the  Indians. 
Thackeray  probably  has  in  mind  the  general  unrest  at  the  time 
of  Braddock's  fateful  campaign  in  1756;  but  such  attacks  by 
the  Indians  were  hardly  as  far  east  as  Westmoreland  County 
in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century. 

xxvi  :  21.  gentleman  from  York.  York  county  in  Virginia, 
and  not  York  in  England,  is  meant,  of  course. 

xxvi  :  33.  my  half-brother,  my  Lord  Castlewood  and  his 
second  lady.  The  "half-brother"  is  the  gallant  and  joyous 
young  Frank  of  this  story.  The  ''second  lady"  appears  in 
The  Virginiaris. 

xxvi  :  36.  the  famous  Lord  Bolingbroke  .  .  .  from  Dawley. 
Henry  St.  John,  created  Viscount  Bolingbroke,  July  7,  1712, 
by  Queen  Anne  for  his  services  to  the  Tory  government,  and 
Prime  Minister  in  1714.  Upon  the  accession  of  George  I,  he 
fled  to  France,  but  later  made  his  peace  with  the  Whig  govern- 
ment, and  settled  at  Dawley,  near  Uxbridge,  not  far  from  Pope's 
Twickenham  villa.  He  exerted  a  great  literarj''  influence  upon 
Pope,  who,  in  1732,  dedicated  to  him  the  Essay  on  Man,  be- 
ginning, — 

"  Awake,  my  St.  John  !   leave  all  meaner  things." 

xxvii  :  1.     Sachem,  the  chief  of  certain  Indian  tribes. 

xxvii  :  2.  Pocahontas,  the  daughter  of  Powhatan,  chief  of  the 
Indian  tribes  in  Virginia  in  1607,  was  the  best  known  of  all 
Indian  characters,  from  the  story  of  her  rescue  of  Captain  John 
Smith,  her  baptism,  her  marriage  to  John  Rolfe,  secretary  of  the 
colony,  and  her  visit  and  death  in  England.  Thackeraj'-  has 
one  of  his  young  Virginians  writing  verses  entitled  "  Pocahontas  " 
in  The  Virginians  (1857-1859). 


498  HENRY    ESMOND 

xxvii  :  3.      Bishop  Tusher's   Lady  .  .  .    Mrs.  Thomas  Tushor 

The  once  beautiful  Beatrix  of  this  story  finally  married  "Tom 
Tusher"  of  our  narrative  —  plainly  hinted  at  as  in  Thackeray's 
mind  from  the  beginning  —  and  through  her  beauty  and  in- 
fluence raised  him  to  a  bishop's  position.  Cf.  1.  39,  ''the  future 
Bishop's  lady."  She  reappears  as  the  Dowager  Countess  of 
Bernstein  in  The  Virginians,  and  is  as  notably  protrayed  there 
in  her  old  age  by  oiu"  novelist  as  in  this  volume  in  her  youth. 

Thackeray  is  enjoying  the  representation  of  the  fine  scorn  one 
lady  of  the  f amil}'-  bears  to  the  other.  Cf .  further,  p.  xxviii.  This 
trait  is  further  seen  in  the  reference  to  "the  junior  branch  of 
our  family  "  (xxviii:  14),  and  in  sundry  footnotes  which  Thack- 
eray permits  "Rachel  Esmond  Warrington." 

xxvii :  13.  having  left  her  family,  and  fled  to  Paris.  A  reference 
to  the  fate  of  .Beatrix  after  the  episode  told  in  the  last  chapter 
of  this  story;  cf.  490:26-29.  So  below,  1.  39,  "had  quitted 
Castlew^ood  and  joined  the  Pretender  at  Paris." 

xxvii  :  15.  betrayed  his  secrets  to  my  Lord  Stair,  King 
George's  Ambassador.  John  Dalrymple  (1673-1747),  second 
Earl  of  Stair,  was  appointed  Ambassador  to  Paris  in  1715, 
early  in  George  I's  reign.  He  was  noted  for  the  full  information 
he  was  able  to  furnish  his  Sovereign  concerning  the  intrigues  of 
the  French  Court  on  behalf  of  the  Stuarts.  Beatrix  is  repre- 
sented as  one  of  the  sources  of  this  information. 

xiviii  :  6.  the  Duke  of  Argyle's  army  in  Scotland.  The 
Duke  of  Argyle  was  a  supporter  of  George  I,  and  appears 
prominently  near  the  end  of  this  story  in  determining  the  suc- 
cession. Cf.  474:9-11;  476  :  34-38.  The  expedition  in  Scot- 
land was  to  quell  the  Jacobite  rising  on  the  landing  of  the 
Stuart  Pretender  in  that  country  in  1715  (cf.  11.  3,  4.  "On  his 
expedition  to  Scotland  directly  after"). 

xxviii  :  12.  brought  back  my  Lord  to  the  Church  of  England. 
Frank  —  "my  Lord  Castlewood"  —  on  the  occasion  of  his 
first  marriage  in  Brussels  had  become  a  Roman  Catholic  and  so 
remains  to  the  close  of  the  story. 


I 


NOTES  499 

xxviii  :  15.  Sir  Robert  Walpole.  The  noted,  and  in  some 
ways  notorious,  Whig  statesman  (1676-1745)  and  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  Prime  Minister  of  England  from  1715 
to  1717,  and  again  from  1721  to  1742.  Through  his  knowledge 
of  matters  of  finance  Walpole  held  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne 
important  offices  under  Whig  and  Tory  governments  alike. 
Horace  Walpole,  the  voluminous  letter-writer  and  dilettante, 
was  his  son. 

xxviii  :  16.  until  her  husband  slept  at  Lambeth,  i.e.  was 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Primate  of  the  English  Church; 
"Lambeth"  being  the  seat  of  the  Archbishop's  palace  in  Lon- 
don. 

xxviii  :  19.  the  pair  sleep  under  that  stone.  Thackeray  probably 
forgot  he  had  penned  this  and  later  resurrected  Beatrix  in  The 
Virginians. 

Heading  ;  Book  I.  Trinity  College,  in  Cambridge,  the  largest 
foundation  of  Cambridge,  originated  by  Henry  VIII  in  1546  by 
the  union  of  several  small  foundations.  In  Punch  for  July  19, 
1845,  Thackeray  had  a  serio-comic  skit  on  "  Reasons  why  I 
shall  not  send  my  Son  Gustavus  Frederic  to  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge."  Trinity  College  is  selected  in  both  instances  as 
the  most  representative. 

1:1.  the  old  tragedies.  The  Greek  theatre  and  tragedy  is 
meant.  Hexameters  would  have  been  a  better  designation  of 
the  classic  metre  ;  iambics  (1.  2)  is  rather  the  measure  of  the 
English  drama  of  Elizabeth's  time.  The  mask  (1.  2),  stilts, 
head-dress  (1.  3),  and  cothurnus  (1.  12),  i.e.  buskin  or  shoe  of  the 
tragic  actors,  were  accessories.  The  play  of  Medea  (1.  6),  who 
slew  her  children  by  Jason  because  he  had  abandoned  her,  was 
by  Euripides  (480-406  b.c.)  and  that  of  Agamemnon  (1.  7)  by 
iEschylus  (525-456  b.c). 

1  :  7.  a  dying  fall.  If  these  be  "  Mr.  Diyden's  words,"  they 
were  certainly  got  from  Shakespeare,  who  uses  them  at  the 
opening  of  Twelfth  Night,  I.  1,4:  "That  strain  again!  it  had 
a    dying    fall."     John    Dryden    (1631-1700),    not    only    wrote 


500  HENRY    ESMOND 

dramas,  but  discussed  the  principles  of  the  ancient  and  modern 
drama  and  in  a  sense  became  the  founder  of  modern  EngUsh 
literary  criticism. 

1  :  17.  I  have  seen  ...  Cf.  1.  28,  I  wonder  and  2  :  2, 
I  saw.  The  occasional  use  of  the  first  person  gives  a  personal 
touch  to  the  supposed  Memoirs. 

1  :  18.  the  old  French  King  Lewis  the  Fourteenth,  etc. 
Thackeray  elsewhere  presented  this  same  idea  in  three  draw- 
ings: (1)  "Ludovicus"  —  an  old,  decrepit,  naked  figure  leaning 
on  a  staff;  (2)  "  Rex  "  — the  great  powdered  wig  with  robes  of 
state;  (3)  ''Ludovicus  Rex,"  i.e.  King  Lewis  —  putting  the  de- 
crepit figure  inside  the  royal  clothes.  Thackeray  uses  the  Eng- 
lish form  "Lewis"  rather  than  the  French  "Louis." 

Louis  XIV,  called  "the  Great,"  or  Le  Grand  Monarque,  was 
King  of  France  for- more  than  seventy  years,  from  1643  to  1715. 
Madame  Maintenon  (1.  26)  was  privately  married  to  Louis  XIV 
in  1685,  shortly  after  the  death  of  the  Queen. 

1  :  21.  the  part  of  Hero.  This  seems  to  be  an  echo  of  Car- 
lyle's  Heroes  and  Hero-worship  (1841). 

2  :  2.  Versailles  and  Windsor.  The  locations  of  the  country 
residences  of  the  French  and  English  sovereigns  respectively. 
There  was  both  an  extended  Windsor  Forest  and  a  smaller 
Windsor  Park,  this  being  the  scene  of  the  reference,  "Queen 
Anne  at  the  latter  place  tearing  down  the  Park  slopes." 

2  :  6.  Saint  Paul's  .  .  .  Ludgate  Hill.  St.  Paul's  Cathedral 
in  London  is  prominently  situated  at  the  top  of  Ludgate  Hill. 
The  stone  statue  of  Queen  Anne  in  front  of  the  cathedral,  facing 
"the  coaches  struggling  up  Ludgate  Hill,"  commemorates  the 
completion  of  the  new  building  in  1710  after  the  great  fire  of  1666. 

2  :  12.  congees,  low  bows  and  courtesies.  French,  congees. 
It  is  ne(;dless  to  say  that  the  first  person  employed  and  the 
sentiments  expressed  are  Thackeray's  own. 

2  :  16.  Mr.  Hogarth  and  Mr.  Fielding.  William  Hogarth 
(1607-1764),  the  EngUsh  painter  and  engraver;  Henry  Fielding 
(1707-1754),  the  novelist.     Thackeray  frequently  coupled  the 


NOTES  501 

cwo  names  together,  and  the  opinion  that  Hogarth  accomplished 
with  the  pencil  what  Fielding  did  with  the  pen  in  portraying 
the  manners  of  English  society  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  is  generally  accepted.  "Hogarth,  Smollett,  and  Field- 
ing" was  the  subject  of  the  fifth  of  the  lectures  on  The  English 
Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

2  :  18.  the  Court  Gazette,  the  oflScial  paper  telling  of  all 
foreign  news,  appointments  to  office,  promotions  in  the  army, 
etc.  Thackeray  refers  to  it  often  as  prominent  in  the  politics  of 
Queen  Anne's  day. 

2  :  20.  a  German  officer  of  Webb's,  i.e.  of  General  Webb's 
division  of  the  army.  Cf.  Chapter  XV  of  Book  II.  This 
emphasis  of  Webb  throughout  the  story  was  due  to  the  author's 
personal  interest  and  pride  in  a  family  connection. 

2  :  36.  pawned  his  plate  for  King  Charles  the  Fi-.st,  i.e. 
spent  his  fortune  on  behalf  of  Charles  and  the  Stuarts  in  the 
Civil  Wars.  Cf.  "lost  the  greater  part  of  it  by  fines  and  seques- 
trations" {i.e.  by  condemnation  and  possession  by  the  State). 
Charles  I  succeeded  his  father,  James  I,  as  King  of  England  in 
1625.  When  civil  war  broke  out,  Charles  was  tried  for  treason 
and  beheaded,  January,  1649,  after  which  followed  the  Com- 
monwealth (3:1)  under  Cromwell. 

2:39.  Ireton.  Henry  Ireton  (1611-1651),  Cromwell's  son- 
in-law,  accompanied  the  general  to  Ireland  in  1649  as  second  in 
command,  was  his  deputy  in  1650,  and  died  the  following  year. 

3  :  8.  Worcester  fight,  on  September  3,  1651,  was  the  final 
victoiy  of  the  English  Civil  War,  won  by  Cromwell  over  the 
Scotch  Loyalists.  It  is  Thackeray's  method  to  repeat  such 
references  so  as  to  keep  clear  the  historical  background  and 
connection.  The  CommonwcaUh  lasted  from  the  execution  of  the 
Kmg  in  1649  until  Cromwell  made  himself  Protector  in  1653. 
The  Restoration  of  Charles  II  occurred  in  1660,  two  years  after 
the  death  of  that  master-spirit  in  opposition,  Oliver  Cromwell. 

3  :  14.  who  sold  his  country  and  who  took  bribes  of  the 
French  king.     Thackeray  criticised  alike  the  lack  of  character 


502  HENRY    ESMOND 

and  self-respect  in  the  Stuart  sovereigns  and  the  absurdities  oK. 
the  Hanoverian  foreigners  who  supplanted  them. 

3  :  18.  Mr.  Addison  .  .  .  Cato.  Joseph  Addison  (1672- 
1719),  the  English  essayist  and  friend  of  Steele  in  the  Tatler, 
Spectator,  etc.,  poet,  dramatist,  and  Whig  statesman,  figures 
extensively  in  this  novel,  as  does  Steele.  See  especially  Book  II, 
Chapter  XI,  "The  Famous  Mr.  Joseph  Addison."  The  tragedy 
of  Cato  was  first  performed  at  Drury  Lane  Theatre,  London, 
April  14,  1713,  and  coming  after  the  dismissal  of  the  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  many  considered  it  directed  against  that  chieftain. 
Thackeray  here  applies  "fugitive  Cato"  to  Charles  II. 

3  :  27.  Ostade  or  Mieris  .  .  .  Knellers  and  Le  Bruns. 
Adrian  van  Ostade  (1620-1685)  and  Frans  van  Mieris  (1635- 
1681)  were  Holland  painters  of  the  genre  school,  which  excelled 
in  painting,  usually  on  small  canvasses,  realistic  scenes  of  low 
and  humble  life.  Sir  Godfrey  Kneller  (1646-1723)  was  a 
German  portrait  painter  at  Charles  II's  court.  Charles  Le 
Brun  (1619-1690)  was  a  French  historical  painter  at  the  same 
time  at  the  court  of  Louis  XIV.  The  method  of  both  these 
court  painters  was  to  treat  the  king  flatteringly,  as  if  some  great 
hero  or  god  of  Olympus;    hence  Thackeray's  comments. 

4  :  6.  Lord  Mayor  .  .  mince-pies  and  the  Mansion  House. 
The  reference  is  to  the  annual  procession  of  the  newly  chosen 
Lord  Mayor  of  London  to  the  Mansion  House,  his  official  resi- 
dence in  the  hearc  of  the  city.  Begun  in  1739,  it  did  not  exist  in 
Queen  Anne's  time,  nor  even  on  the  occasion  'of  the  only  visit 
of  Rachel  Warrington  with  her  parents  to  London  in  1736. 
The  mince-pies  refer  to  the  great  dinner  or  feast  held  on  the 
occasion  of  the  installation  of  the  Mayor,  the  ninth  of  Novem- 
ber each  year. 

4  :  9.  Jack  of  Newgate's  procession  ...  to  Tyburn.  New- 
gate, originally  the  western  gate  of  the  old  city  of  London,  be- 
came used  as  a  jail  for  prisoners  after  the  twelfth  century. 
"Tyburn-tree,"  near  the  present  Marble  Arch,  at  Hyde  Park, 
was  the  public  gallows  until   executions  were  transferred   in 


I 


NOTES  503 

1783  to  the  newly  built  Newgate  prison.  "The  procession  con- 
sisted of  the  sheriffs,  in  a  carriage,  or  perhaps  a  deputy  sherifif, 
who  led  the  way.  He  was  followed  by  the  cart  or  carts  in  which 
the  criminals  sat  beside  their  coffins;  with  them  sat  the  chap- 
lain, exhorting." —  Besant's  London  in  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
pp.  547-8.  Jack  of  Newgate  was  probably  suggested  bj^  a  notori- 
ous robber.  Jack  Sheppard  (1702-1724),  a  rather  popular  char- 
acter for  his  dashing  ways,  who  made  two  remarkable  escapes 
from  NcAvgate  Prison,  but  was  finally  hanged  at  Tyburn,  No- 
vember 18,  1724.  Hounslow  Heath  (1.  17),  a  few  miles  west  from 
London,  was  a  notorious  resort  for  highwaymen  in  the  eighteenth 
centuiy. 

4  :  24.  house  of  Castlewood,  county  Hants.  The  geography 
of  Thackeray's  English  estate  of  Castlewood  is  in  the  county  of 
Hampshire.  But  according  to  Mrs.  Ritchie,  Thackeray's 
daughter,  the  original  of  Castlewood  in  Thackeray's  mind  was 
Clevedon  Court  in  Somersetshire,  and  near  the  beginning  of 
The  Virginians  the  scene  seems  to  be  transferred  there,  the 
ship  anchoring  but  a  short  ways  off  in  the  Severn.  Near  the 
beginning  of  Chapter  II,  "county  Hants"  is  written  "com. 
{i.e.  comitatus)  Hants,"  the  abbreviation  of  the  Latin  word, 
in  the  year  1691.  William  III  had  become  King  in  1689, 
and  by  his  wise  policy  those  opposed  to  him  in  politics  could 
acquire  their  titles  and  property  and  live  in  peace. 

4  :  31-2.  Sir  Anthonio  Van  Dyck  .  .  .  Mr.  Dobson.  Sir 
Anthony  Van  Dyck,  or  Vandyke  (1599-1641),  the  famous  Ant- 
werp painter,  was  knighted  and  made  court-painter  by  King 
Charles  I  in  1632.  Thackeray  humorously  gives  an  Italian  or 
would-be  foreign  flavor  to  the  name  "Anthonio."  Mr.  Dobson 
is  not  intended  as  a  pun  —  something  of  which  Thackeray  was 
easily  capable  — but  is  William  Dobson  (1610-1646),  a  pupil  and 
imitator  of  Van  Dyck  and  successor  to  the  title  of  court-painter. 

5  :  2.  Chelsea,  near  London,  figures  frequently  in  the  novel 
as  the  home  of  Henrj'-  Esmond's  step-mother,  the  Lady  Dowager. 
Cf.  16:23,  24:  "she  had  removed  from   Lincoln's-Inn-Fields 


504  HENRY    ESMOND 

to  Chelsea."  Not  far  away  was  Kensington  and  its  Square, 
"where  Lady  Castle  wood  lived."  Macaulay's  Histonj  of  Eng- 
land, Vol.  I,  a  work  which,  appearing  in  1848,  Thackeray 
certainly  used,  describes  Chelsea  in  1685  as  "a  quiet  country 
village  with  scarce  a  thousand  inhabitants." 

5  :  3.  Sir  Peter  Lely  (1618-1680),  court  painter  to  Charles  II. 
He  was  born  in  the  Low  Countries,  but  went  to  England  in  1641. 
He  painted  a  series  of  famous  beauties  of  Charles  11 's  court  in 
various  costumes  and  attitudes,  some  of  which  are  still  in  the 
Hampton  Court  gallery.  Hence  the  reference  to  her  ladyship's 
being  ''represented  as  a  huntress  of  Diana's  court." 

5  :  17.  Dea  certe,  i.e.  a  goddess  surely  —  from  a  Hne  in 
Virgil's  j^neid,  I,  328.  Thackeray,  dramatically  keeping  the 
end  of  the  story  in  view  from  the  first,  here  gives  the  first  im- 
pression Lady  Castlewood  makes  upon  Esmond.  The  portrayal 
of  the  relations  of  these  two  characters  taxed  his  art  to  the  ut- 
most, and  it  is  on  the  success  of  this  portrayal  that  much  of  the 
popularity  of  the  novel  is  based. 

5  :  23.  Mrs.  Worksop.  The  custom  of  suggesting  the  char- 
acter by  the  name  is  particularly  characteristic  of  Thackeray's 
earlier  work,  as  it  is  of  Dickens's,  and  is  as  old  as  the  mediaeval 
allegories  and  moralities. 

5  :  29.  war  on  the  Danube  against  the  Turk.  In  1689  a 
German  force,  partly  the  Emperor  of  Austria's  troops,  was  kept 
on  the  lower  Danube  in  Servia  and  Bulgaria  against  the  Turks, 
as  allies  of  the  French. 

5  :  38.  she  hath.  A  purposely  archaic  form,  relegated  to 
the  parenthesis. 

6  :  25.  little  priest.  Henry  Esmond  had  been  designed  for 
the  Church,  as  was  customary  with  dependants  of  great  families 
or  younger  sons. 

6  :  33.  Le  pauvre  enfant,  il  n'a  que  nous.  Poor  child,  he 
has  no  one  but  us. 

7  :  34.  Queen  Elizabeth's  rooms.  Queen  Elizabeth,  who 
reigned  from  1558  to  1603,  made  a  special  practice  of  paying 


i 


NOTES  505 

visits  of  state  to  her  subjects.  These  visits,  called  "  progresses," 
have  been  fully  described  in  the  essay  that  gives  its  title  to  the 
volume  by  Professor  F.  E.  Schelling,  The  Queen's  Progress, 
1904.  From  these  visits  many  houses  came  to  have  a  suite  of 
rooms  called  "Queen  Elizabeth's  rooms." 

8  :  6.  Walcote  Forest,  the  home  and  estate  where  they  had 
iiitherto  lived  more  humbly. 

8  :  8.  history  of  the  house,  the  trachtions  and  legends,  as 
well  as  narrative  of  facts,  which  grow  around  any  historic  home. 
This  "history"  is  told  in  the  foUojving  chapter. 

8  :  11.  Roundheads,  followers  of  the  party  of  Parliament 
who  fought  against  the  Cavaliers  or  royalists  true  to  Charles  I. 

8  :  28.  How  .  .  .  remain  fixed  on  the  memory!  An  ex- 
ample of  Thackeray's  habit  of  extraneous  comment,  easily 
transferred  to  Esmond. 

8  :  37.  trencher-man.  An  eater  with  a  large  appetite.  The 
word  is  more  characteristic  of  an  earlier  period  than  Anne's. 

10  :  5.  23  Eliz.,  i.e.  in  the  twenty-third  year  of  Elizabeth's 
reign,  laws,  acts  of  Parliament,  etc.,  being  thus  reckoned  ac- 
cording to  the  reign  of  the  sovereign. 

10  :  5.  Henry  Poyns,  gent.,  i.e.  gentleman,  a  title  at  that 
time  regularly  bestowed,  and  carrying  with  it  certain  honors 
and  privileges. 

10  :  10.  King  James  the  First.  James  VI  of  Scotland,  son 
of  the  unfortunate  Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots,  became,  upon 
Elizabeth's  death  in  1603,  also  King  of  England,  and  was  thus 
first  of  the  Stuarts  on  the  English  throne. 

10  :  11.  Elector  Palatine  .  .  .  that  unfortunate  Prince. 
Frederick  V,  Elector  Palatine,  was  the  son-in-law  of  King 
James  I  of  England,  and  involved  his  royal  father-in-law  in  the 
loss  of  both  men  and  money  in  his  ambition  to  accept  the 
Crown  of  Bohemia  in  1619,  thereby  bringing  upon  himself  the 
opposition  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria.  The  Imperialists  refer 
to  the  forces  of  the  Emperor  of  Austria.  The  "Elector  Pala- 
tine" was  the  ruler  of  the  Palatinate,  a  German  State  in  the 


506  HENRY   ESMOND 

region  of  the  Middle    Rhine,    of   which    Heidelberg  was  the 
capital  city. 

10  :  24.  banneret,  a  knight  of  a  definite  rank  possessing  cer- 
tain privileges  —  originally,  one  with  the  right  of  carrying  a 
banner. 

11  :  5.  the  King  being  at  Oxford,  in  1642.  Charles  I's  war 
with  Parliament  began  in  1642,  and  Hume  remarks,  the  King 
"took  possession  of  Oxford,  the  only  town  in  his  dominions 
which  was  altogether  at  his  devotion." 

11  :  15.  a  grant  of  land  in  the  plantations  of  Virginia.  See 
Preface,  p.  xxiii. 

11  :  22.  the  Usurper's,  i.e.  Cromwell's.  Thackeray  repre- 
sents the  Esmonds  as  ardent  loyalists,  speaking  of  the  House  of 
Stuart  in  most  exalted  terms,  and  applying  harsh  epithets  to 
the  opposing  side. 

11  :  24.  against  the  Parliament,  anno  1647,  i.e.  on  the  side 
of  the  King,  in  the  year  1647.  Anno,  the  Latin  form,  is  used 
in  older  legal  and  official  documents. 

11   :  28.    at  Worcester  fight.     Cf.  3:  8;    sec  also  12:  3. 

11  :  36.  the  Duke  of  York  and  his  brother  the  King.  The 
King  was  Charles  II,  restored  to  the  throne  in  1660,  and  "the 
Duke  of  York"  was  his  brother  who  succeeded  Charles  as 
James  II,  in  1685. 

11  :  39.  Queen  Henrietta  Maria.  Charles  I's  queen,  daugh- 
ter of  Henry  IV  of  France,  and  married  to  Charles  the  year  he 
came  to  the  throne. 

12  :  2.  Breda.  A  town  in  the  Netherlands,  the  scene  o/  the 
Compromise  or  league  between  the  Protestants  and  Roman 
Catholics  in  1566  against  what  was  regarded  as  the  encroach- 
ments of  Philip  II.  It  was  probably  at  the  time  of  the  Restora- 
tion and  General  Amnesty  in  1660,  proclaimed  by  Charles  II 
from  Breda,  that  the  novelist  supposes  George  Esmond  to  have 
joined  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

12  :  11.  Bruges,  a  noted  city  of  Belgium,  prominent  in  the 
wars  of  the  period. 


NOTES  507 

12  :  27.  Jack  Churchill,  the  future  Lord  Marlborough,  the 
General,  of  whom  a  great  deal  is  said  in  the  story.  Churchill's 
"sister  "  was  the  mother  of  the  Duke  of  Berwick. 

12  :  32.  condiscipuli,  fellow-pupils.  St.  Paul's  School,  in 
London,  founded  in  1512  by  John  Colet,  Dean  of  St.  Paul's 
Cathedral,  the  noted  classical  scholar,  and  friend  of  Erasmus 
and  Sir  Thomas  More. 

13  :  1.  Tangier.  A  seaport  of  Morocco  on  the  northern 
African  coast,  southwest  from  Gibraltar.  The  Portuguese  got 
possession  of  Tangier  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  when  Charles 
II  married  Catherine  of  Braganza  in  1662,  it  was  ceded  to  Eng- 
land. Frank  Esmond's  "two  years' service"  is  supposed  to 
have  been  in  the  period  1662-1684,  while  the  English  kept  a 
garrison  stationed  there,  before  abandoning  it  to  the  Moors. 

13  :  3.  Winchester,  the  chief  city  of  Hampshire,  in  which 
county  "Castlewood"  is  placed,  and  the  ancient  capital  of 
Wessex.  Winchester  figures  in  our  story  chiefly  through  its 
cathedral:  Lady  Castlewood  is  the  daughter  of  the  Dean  of 
the  Cathedral,  and  the  first  meeting  and  reconciliation  between 
Lady  Castlewood,  after  the  death  of  her  husband,  and  Henry 
Esmond,  is  in  the  Cathedral  (Book  II,  Chapter  VI). 

13  :  4.  a  pack  of  beagles,  i.e.  a  pack  of  hunting-dogs,  one  c! 
the  points  of  pride  with  "a  country-gentleman." 

13  :  5.    in  King  Charles's  time,  i.e.  in  Charles  II's  reign. 

13  :  10-19.  served  with  the  Emperor,  and  with  the  Dutch 
.  .  .  and  against  them,  when  his  Majesty  made  an  alliance  with 
the  French  King,  Charles  II  had  been  allied  with  the  Emperor 
of  Austria  and  the  Dutch  —  the  "States"  of  the  Netherlands  — 
against  Louis  XIV  and  the  French;  but  he  deserted  the  Triple 
Alliance  and  "made  an  alliance  with  the  French  King,"  in  1670. 

13  :  27.  ordinaries,  taverns,  public  resorts.  The  term  is  still 
in  use  in  Virginia. 

13  :  27-8.  a  brawler  about  Alsatia  and  the  Friars,  "Alsa- 
tia"  was  a  name  applied  to  Whitefriars,  a  district  between  the 
Thames  and   Fleet  Street,  which  possessed  certain  privileges 


508  HENRY   ESMOND 

granted  originally  to  the  Convent  of  Carmelites  or  White  Friars 
located  there.  The  district  became  the  resort  of  the  worst 
characters  in  the  city,  until  a  riot  in  Charles  Il's  reign  caused  in 
1697  the  abrogation  of  all  privileges.  The  region  is  described 
in  Scott's  Fortunes  of  Nigel,  and  in  Shadwell's  comedy,  Squire 
of  Alsatia,  as  well  as  in  Thackeray's  Pendennis. 

13  :  34.  Mr.  Killigrew.  Thomas  Killigrew  (1612-1683),  an 
Enghsh  dramatist  and  noted  as  a  wit  in  Charles  I's  and  Charles 
Il's  reigns. 

13  :  36.  memento  mori,  i.e.  "Remember  you  must  die," 
hence  any  reminder  of  death.  The  Egyptians  are  said  at  their 
banquets  to  have  been  in  the  habit  of  introducing  a  mummy 
or  skeleton  and  addressing  their  guests  to  this  effect.  This 
practice  is  meant  by  ''the  death's  head  at  the  King's  feast." 

14  :  5.  Lincoln's-Inn-Fields,  The  largest  square  in  London, 
laid  out  by  the  architect  Inigo  Jones  and  made  a  fashionable 
dwelling  place.  The  ''Duke's  Theatre"  stood  on  this  square 
from  1662  to  1671.  The  "Portugal  {i.e.  Portuguese)  Ambassa- 
dor's Chapel,"  situated  near  this  square,  was  maintained  by  the 
Portuguese  Ambassador,  where  Roman  Catholic  services  were 
given  for  the  benefit  of  the  Portuguese  in  London. 

14  :  18.  Bell  Yard,  probably  connected  with  or  near  to  the 
Bell  Inn.     Cf.  35:  14. 

14  :  29.  before  King  Charles  died.  Charles  II,  died  Feb- 
ruary 6,  1685. 

14  :  38.  the  poor  little  cripple  touched  by  his  Majesty.  It 
was  a  popular  belief  that  the  touch  of  the  King,  who  was 
divinely  anointed,  would  heal  otherwise  incurable  diseases. 
Boswell  tells  how  Dr.  Johnson  when  a  child  was  carried  by  his 
mother  to  be  touched  by  Queen  Anne  and  cured  of  a  scrofulous 
affection. 

15 . :  20.    Hexton.    Presumably  intended  to  be  in  Hampshire. 

16  :  1-2.  Whitehall.  A  royal  palace  in  London  from  the 
time  of  Henry  VIII  to  that  of  James  I,  when  it  was  burned  in 
1615.     Only  the  banqueting  hall,  designed  by  the  architect^ 


NOTES  509 

inigo  Jones,  was  rebuilt  and  now  exists,  a  splendid  example  of 
architecture  in  the  spirit  of  the  Renaissance.  Lady  Dorchester, 
Tom  Killigrew's  daughter.  This  is  a  slip  of  Thackeray's. 
The  notorious  Lady  Dorchester  was  Catharine  (1657-1717), 
daughter  of  the  poet,  Sir  Charles  Sedley  (1639-1701),  the  favorite 
of  Charles  II's  brother,  James,  Duke  of  York,  who,  after  he 
became  King  James  II,  created  her  in  1686  Baroness  of  Darling- 
ton and  Countess  of  Dorchester. 

16  :  4.  Esther  .  .  .  Vashti.  See  the  Book  of  Esther  in  the 
Old  Testament. 

16  :  Note  1 :  4-6.  to  St.  Germain's,  i.e.  to  the  Court  of  the 
French  King.  Prince  of  Orange,  i.e.  William  III,  the  Esmond 
loyalty  to  the  Stuarts  denying  him  the  title  of  King. 

17  :  4.  lap-dogs,  and  cockatoos.  It  was  quite  fashionable 
for  ladies  to  have  as  pets  both  lap-dogs  and  cockatoos  or  parrots. 
Cf .  23  :  24. 

17  :  7.  the  No-Popery  Cry.  The  Revolution  of  1688  and 
the  banishment  of  the  House  of  Stuart  turned  largely  on  the 
prejudice  existing  against  the  Roman  Catholics. 

18  :  12.  the  persecution  of  the  Huguenots  by  the  French 
King.  The  Huguenots  were  the  Protestants  and  Puritans  of 
France,  who,  after  much  persecution,  were  secured  their  rights 
in  the  reign  of  Henry  IV  by  the  Edict  of  Nantes  in  1598.  The 
Revocation  of  this  Edict  b3^  Louis  XIV  in  1685  caused  France 
to  lose  many  of  her  best  people.  They  introduced  silk-manu- 
facture into  England,  settling  in  a  quarter  of  London  north  of 
the  Tower  called  Spitalfields  or  "  Spittlefields. "  Their  industry 
"amongst  looms  and  spinning-wheels"  and  their  religious  zeal, 
with  "a  great  deal  of  psalm-singing  and  church-going,"  are 
described  11.  16-17. 

18  :  22.  Bon  Papa,  i.e.  Good  Papa.  French  abounds  in 
these  few  pages  describing  the  French  refugees.  Thackeray  had 
spent  some  happy  years  in  Paris  as  a  young  man  studying  art, 
and  had  a  distinct  liking  for  French  phrases.  His  prose  style 
was  distinctly  influenced  by  French  prose. 


510  HENRY    ESMOND 

18  :  30.  Babylonish  scarlet  woman,  and  19:  33.  Babylon  and 
the  scarlet  lady.  The  Protestant  name  for  the  Church  of  Rome 
with  allusion  to  the  Book  of  Revelation,  xvii. 

20  :  14.  Father  Holt.  This  character,  one  of  the  most 
striking  in  the  book,  a  Roman  Catholic  priest  and  Jesuit,  ap- 
pears often  in  these  pages  as  a  tireless  worker  for  his  Church 
and  the  House  of  Stuart. 

20  :  26.    C'est  bien  ca,    It  is  well  as  it  is. 

20  :  35.  took  water  on  the  river,  i.e.  proceeded  by  water. 
London  Bridge.  At  the  time  our  story  opens,  in  169*1,  this  was 
the  only  bridge  London  possessed  across  the  Thames.  It  was 
built  ''with  the  houses  and  booksellers'  shops  thereon,  looking 
like  a  street." 

20  :  37.  the  Tower  of  London.  The  ancient  citadel  of 
London,  not  far  from  "London  Bridge,"  used  as  palace,  then  as 
prison,  and  now  as  a  national  arsenal  and  museum. 

'  21  :  3.  on  a  pillion,  i.e.  a  cushion  adjusted  to  a  saddle, 
serving  as  a  seat  for  a  second  lighter  person,  like  a  boy  or  a 
woman. 

21  :  23.  to  the  tune  of  Dr.  Martin  Luther,  i.e.  to  the  tune  of 
one  of  Martin  Luther's  hymns.  Harry  had  learned  these  in  the 
Huguenot  church  meetings.  Martin  Luther  (1483-1546)  was 
the  great  German  Reformer,  who  embodied  the  spirit  of  the 
Reformation. 

21  :  24.     grand  parrain,  godfather. 

22  :  6  and  23:  1.    Parbleu !    'Zounds! 

22  :  20.  a  cassock  and  a  broad-leafed  hat,  the  dress^^  of  the 
Church  of  England  clergyman.  The  "cassock"  is  the  long 
black  coat  or  gown  extending  to  the  feet  and  girded  about  the 
middle.  The  broad-leafed  hat  was  the  clergyman's  "shovel- 
hat"  referred  to  later  in  the  story. 

23  :  19.  in  the  manner  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time.  The 
adornment  of  English  homos,  hitherto  almost  wholly  neglected, 
was  carried  far  in  Elizabeth's  reign.  See  the  discussion  in 
Orfon's  Short  History  of  English  People,  Chapter  VII,  Section  V. 


1 


NOTES  511 

23  :  39.  She  had  as  many  rings  on  her  fingers  as  the  old 
woman  of  Banbury  Cross.     This  refers  to  the  nursery  rhyme;  — 

Ride  a  cock  horse 
To  Banbury  Cross 
To  see  an  old  woman 
On  a  white  horse; 
Rings  on  her  fingers, 
Bells  on  her  toes, 
She  will  make  music 
Wherever  she  goes. 

"Banbury  Cross"  was  an  ancient  cross  in  the  town  of  Ban- 
bury, twenty-two  miles  north  of  Oxford. 

24  :  2.    pantofles,  slippers.    A  French  word  and  fashion. 
24  :  4.    tortoiseshell     stick,    i.e.     stick    with    tortoise-sheU 

handle. 

24  :  28.  Je  meurs  ou  je  m'attache,  I  die  where  I  am  at- 
tached. 

24  :  30.  The  ivy  says  so  in  the  picture,  and  clings  to  the 
oak.  This  was  a  common  subject  for  Uterary  and  artistic 
portrayals.  Here,  "the  oak"  is,  of  course.  Lady  Castlewood, 
the  clinging  "ivy,"  young  Harr3^  Parasite  .  .  .  parricide; 
Thackeray  is  guilty  of  a  quibble,  Mrs.  Tusher  mistaking  the 
sound  of  the  word. 

25  :  39.  a  sign,  i.e.  the  sign  of  the  cross  according  to  the 
Roman  Catholic  usage. 

26  :  2,  the  clergy  do  not  marry,  referring  to  the  celibacy  of 
the  clergy  in  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

26  :  4.  Saint  Peter,  the  patron  saint  of  the  Roman  Catholic 
Church,  St.  Peter's  at  Rome  being  the  metropolitan  church  of 
that  communion. 

26  :  20.  Three  Castles,  the  inn  of  that  name,  taken  from 
"Castlewood."     Cf.  73:  30. 

26  :  26.    wandering  .ffineas,  the  subject  of  VirgiPs  /Eneid. 


512  HENRY   ESMOND 

27  :  21.  Catholic  gentry.  Many  of  the  country  famili3s, 
always  conservative,  retained  the  religion  of  the  Stuarts. 

28  :  1.  devoirs,  respects,  as  in  duty  bound;  literally, 
"duties." 

28  :  23.  his  order,  i.e.  of  the  Jesuits  or  "Society  of  Jesus," 
founded  by  Ignatius  Loyola  in  1534,  shortly  after  the  Refor- 
mation movement. 

29  :  2.  an  English  priest,  i.e.  a  priest  or  minister  of  the 
English  Church. 

29  :  3.  exhibition,  a  benefaction  procuring  means  of  support,- 
characteristic  of  English  school  and  university  life.  So  "scholar- 
ship," "fellowship,"  "a  good  living,"  i.e.  in  a  preacher's  posi- 
tion,— each  representing  higher  grades  of  benefactions  obtained. 

29  :  10.    at  Trinity,  i.e.  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

29  :  16.  Saint  Philip  of  the  Willows  appeared  to,  referring  to  a 
common  belief  in  the  apparition  of  the  saints.  "St.  Philip  of 
the  Willows"  seems  to  be  invented  by  Thackeray  as  a  special 
saint  for  the  Castlewood  neighborhood.     Cf.  413  :  32. 

29  :  28.  a  victim  on  Tower  Hill.  A  hill  in  London  or  near 
the  Tower  where  political  prisoners  were  formerly  executed. 
A  young  English  poet,  Robert  Southwell,  who  was  a  Jesuit 
priest,  a  century  earlier,  in  Elizabeth's  reign,  was  imprisoned, 
tried  at  Westminster,  and  hanged  at  Tj^burn  in  1595. 

30  :  35.  surviving  Edward  the  Sixth,  i.e.  surviving  destruc- 
tion by  the  Protestants  during  his  reign  (1547-1553).  In  his 
time  the  forty-two  (now  thirty-nine)  Articles  of  Religion  were 
promulgated  and  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer  of  the  English 
Church  was  introduced. 

31  :  35.  cards  .  .  .  piquet  and  cribbage.  All  card  games 
were  very  popular  at  the  time.  So  above,  1.  3 1 ,  backgammon ,  a 
game  played  with  dice  and  pieces.  Cf .  32  :  5,  rubber,  a  series  of 
games  at  cards,  comprising  a  set;  32:  31,  tric-trac,  a  sort  of 
backgammon,  played  with  both  pieces  and  pegs. 

32  :  U).  the  Newa  Letter.  We  should  now  say  "the  news 
paper."     the    Grand    Cyrus.      Artamene   or  the   Grand    Cyru< 


I 


NOTES  513 

was  an  almost  interminable  French  romance  in  ten  volumes 
written  by  Mile.  Scud^ry  in  1650. 

32  :  22.  a  delightful  wicked  comedy  of  Mr.  Shadwell's  or 
Mr.  Wycherley's.  Thomas  Shadweli  (1640-1692)  was  a  dram- 
atist of  Charles  II's  reign,  as  was  WiUiam  Wycherley  (1640- 
1715),  author  of  The  Plain  Dealer,  etc.  The  English  prose 
comedy  of  the  time  of  Charles  II  was  witty  and  brilliant,  but 
loose.  Cf.  Macaulay's  essay,  The  Comic  Dramatists  of  the 
Restoration. 

33  :  26.  the  Downs,  a  scries  of  hills  in  southern  England 
(here  specifically  in  Hampshire).  The  w^ord  is  derived  from 
Old  English  dim,  a  hill. 

33  :  27.  at  a  cock-fight.  Cock-fighting  was  very  popular 
with  the  country-gentleman  of  the  day,  as  well  as  hunting  with 
horses  and  bounds,  and  bear-baiting,  Shakespeare  gives  these 
same  accomplishments  and  interests  to  Sir  Toby  Belch  and  Sir 
Andrew  Aguecheek  in  Twelfth  Night. 

34  :  7.  the  Bell  archway,  i.e.  of  the  inn  or  tavern  called 
"The  Bell,"  and  once  advertised  by  the  sign  of  a  bell.  Besant's 
London  in  the  Eighteenth  Century  gives  a  sketch  of  the  archway 
of  the  "Old  Bell  Inn,  Holborn,"  before  it  w^as  demolished. 

34  :  8.  canaille,  rabble.  A  French  word,  which  Mr.  Holt 
affects. 

35  :  1.  God  save  the  King  .  .  .  the  King's  religion.  My 
Lord  Viscount  means  the  Stuart  King,  James  II,  who  was  a 
Roman  Catholic.  The  events  are  of  the  revolutionary  year, 
1688. 

35  :  2.  psalm-singing  cobbler.  In  Twelfth  Night  Shake- 
speare makes  psalm-singing  a  trait  of  the  weavers.  Both  weaver 
and  cobbler  represent  the  church-going  Protestant  artisan  of 
England,    reenforced  by  the  Huguenot  emigrant. 

35  :  2-3.  as  sure  as  I'm  a  magistrate  of  this  county.  The 
viscount  held  this  office  by  virtue  of  his  position,  like  Sir  Roger 
de  Coverley  in  Addison's  Spectator  papers.  Commit,  i.e.  im- 
prison. 


514  HENRY   ESMOND 

35  :  11.  the  acquittal  of  the  seven  bishops.  Archbishop 
Sancroft  and  six  Bishops  had  been  tried  and  acquitted  on  a 
charge  of  hbel  in  protesting  against  the  declaration  of  Indul- 
gence being  read  aloud  in  the  churches.  The  day  of  the  ac- 
quittal, June  30,  was  the  day  the  invitation  was  sent  to  Wilham 
of  Orange  to  land  in  England.  Hence,  36 :  15, ''  King  James  was 
flying,  the  Dutchmen  {i.e.  followers  of  the  Prince  of  Orange) 
were  coming." 

35  :  13.  assizes  at  Hexton,  i.e.  the  sessions  of  the  county 
court  held  there  periodically. 

36  :  28.  reveillez,  i.e.  awakener,  an  expression  derived  from 
the  military  drumtaps  which  awaken  the  camp  in  early  morning. 

36  :  32.    the  Chaplain's,  i.e.  Father  Holt's. 

37  :  8.  Silentium,  silence.  As  a  Roman  priest,  he  uses 
Latin. 

37  :  13.  brazier.  An  open  pan  with  a  few  lighted  glowing 
coals,  formerly  a  means  of  heating  rooms. 

37  :  21.  famuli,  attendants.  Another  Latin  word  of  Father 
Holt's. 

38  :  7.  perruques.  From  1660  to  about  1725  enormous 
wigs  with  curls  on  the  shoulders  were  fashionable.  A  remnant 
of  this  once  universal  custom  is  seen  in  the  costume  of  the  Lord 
Chancellor,  judges  and  barristers,  and  Speaker  of  the  House 
of  Commons. 

38  :  12.  a  farmer's  smock.  A  garment  of  coarse  cloth, 
something  like  a  full-sized  shirt,  worn  over  the  other  clothes 
like  a  French  blouse. 

38  :  24.  gentlemen  of  my  cloth,  i.e.  Roman  Catholic 
priests  and  Jesuits. 

39  :  14.    buffet,  cupboard. 

39  :  17.  iron  staunchions,  upright  iron  bars  used  for  sup- 
ports. 

39  :  25.  Chrysostom,  i.e.  a  volume  of  the  writings  of  St. 
Chrysostom  (347-407  a.d.),  one  of  the  fathers  of  the  Church 
and     patriarch     of     Constantinople.       "Chrysostom"     means 


I 


NOTES  515 

"golden-mouthed."  The  Book  of  Common  Prayer  contains 
"A  Prayer  of  St.  Chrysostom." 

40  :  28.  The  Prince  of  Orange  was  then  at  Salisbury.  Will- 
iam of  Orange,  invited  by  the  "seven  patriots,"  had  landed  at 
Torbay,  in  Devonshire,  southwestern  England,  on  November  5, 
in  1688.     Salisbury  would  be  about  halfway  to  London. 

40  :  32.  orange  cockade,  the  badge  of  the  new  King  William 
of  Orange. 

40  :  33.  clerk  (pronounced  "dark"),  the  layman  who 
assists  the  clergyman  in  the  Church  of  England  and  leads  in  the 
responses. 

41  :  9.  quinquina,  i.e.  quinine,  obtained  from  the  bark  of 
trees  of  the  genus  Cinchona  or  quinquina. 

42  :  20,  Dutch  monster  .  .  .  the  perjured  wretch,  expres- 
sive of  the  attitude  of  the  loyalists  and  supporters  of  the  Stuarts 
toward  William  III. 

42  :  31.  Churchills  —  the  Judases.  John  Churchill,  Duke  of 
Marlborough,  the  statesman  and  general,  was  notorious  for 
changing  sides  politically  (among  others  he  was  false  to  King 
William)  and  Thackeray  hits  him  hard  both  in  this  novel  and 
in  the  Lectures  on  the  English  Humourists. 

44  :  18.  aide-de-camp,  in  military  usage,  a  confidential 
officer  receiving  and  transmitting  orders  from  a  general  officer. 

44  :  34.  in  the  Tower,  a  prisoner.  Political  prisoners  were 
confined  in  the  Tower  in  London.  Sir  Wilmot  Crawley,  of 
Queen's  Crawley.  An  ancestor  of  Sir  Pitt  Crawley  and  Rawdon 
Crawley  in  Thackeray's  earlier  novel  of  Vanity  Fair  (1846- 
1848). 

44  :  38.  Scots  Greys  and  Dragoons,  i.e.  certain  Scotch  troops. 
The  Scotch  were  particularly  loyal  to  the  Stuart  family,  it  being 
their  Scottish  dynasty  before  it  became  English  in  1603. 

45  :  3.  Newbury,  where  two  battles  were  fought  in  the 
Civil  wars,  is  in  Berkshire,  some  sixteen  miles  west  of  Reading. 

45  :  4.  Ginckel  .  .  .  and  their  little  master  {i.e.  William) 
away  in  Ireland.    General  Godert  de  Ginckel  came  over  with 


516  HENRY   ESMOND 

the  Dutch  troops  in  King  William's  service  in  1688.  He  waa 
later  with  the  King  in  Ireland  and  on  the  Continent,  serving  with 
honor.     Cf.  47:15. 

47  :  3.  qui  pensait  a  tout,  i.e.  who  thought  of  every- 
thing. 

47  :  6.  M.  le  Marquis  .  .  .  M.  le  Vicomte.  The  Esmond 
title,  Viscount,  is  represented  several  times  as  raised  to  a  Mar- 
quisate.  by  the  Stuart  claimant  to  the  throne  for  the  services 
rendered  by  the  family.  Father  Holt  addresses  the  Viscount 
by  the  greater  title,  which  the  unsophisticated  Blaise  does  not 
understand. 

47  :  14.  The  Ecossais,  i.e.  the  Scotch, —  more  of  Blaise's 
French. 

48  :  10.  dying  like  Mary,  Queen  of  Scots,  i.e.  being  beheaded 
as  a  political  martyr. 

48  :  23.  tapestry  parlour,  i.e.  adorned  with  tapestry,  or  rich 
hangings  covering  the  walls. 

49  :  34.  non-juring  peer,  i.e.  one  who  refused  to  swear  al- 
legiance to  William  and  Mary  on  the  ground  that  he  had  already 
sworn  allegiance  to  James  II  and  his  heirs. 

50  :  22.  Non,  jamais,  Monsieur  I'officierl  jamaisl  No, 
never,  Mr.  Officer,  never ! 

51  :  16.  "  burn,"  as  they  say  in  the  play  of  forfeits.  In  the 
children's  play  in  searching  for  anything  hidden,  "You  are  burn- 
ing," is  the  cry  as  the  searcher  comes  near  the  object. 

51  :  21.    night-rail,  i.e.  night-gown. 

51  :  26.  japan-box,  i.e.  box  of  Japanese  ware  containing  the 
*' washes  and  rouge-pots." 

51  :  35.  gold-clocked,  with  a  gold  or  yellow  ornament,  per- 
haps bell  or  flower  shaped,  woven  in  or  embroidered  on  the 
side  of  a  stocking.  The  fashion  seems  to  have  been  introduced 
in  Chailes  IPs  day. 

62  :  14.  Sir  John  Fen  wick  was  beheadc^d  in  1697  on  Tower 
Hill  for  complicity  in  a  plot  against  the  life  of  King  William  III, 
Thackeray's  chronology  is,    as    often,    loose.     Mr.   Coplestone, 


NOTES  517 

from  the  context  a  conspirator  associated  with  Sir  John 
Fenwick.  The  dictionaries  of  biography  give  only  Edward 
Copleston  (1776-1849),  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff.  Cf.  415  :  29-31, 
for  the  names  of  other  conspirators. 

52  :  17.  Lord  Lieutenant  of  the  county,  i.e.  chief  mihtary 
ofRcer  of  the  troops  in  the  county.  Major- General,  i.e.  in  the 
arm}'. 

53  :  12.    K.,  i.e.  King. 

53  :  13.     P.  of  O.,  i.e.  Prince  of  Orange. 

54  :  13.  One  of  your  own  writers.  See  55:  4,  "from  a 
sermon  of  Mr.  Cudworth's."  Ralph  Cudworth  (1617-1688) 
was  professor  of  Hebrew  at  the  University  of  Cambridge,  from 
1645  to  1688,  and  author  of  philosophical  and  religious 
works. 

54  :  24.  Dick  the  scholar.  In  this  familiar  way  Thackeray 
introduces  "Dick  Steele,"  the  future  Sir  Richard  Steele,  friend 
of  Addison,  founder  of  the  Taller  and  the  Spectator,  and  author 
of  many  delightful  essays  therein.  Thackeray  is  again  careless 
about  dates.  Born  in  1672  in  Dublin  (cf.  63 :  7-8,  "when  Dick 
was  a  child  at  Dublin"),  Steele  did  not  enter  the  army  before 
1694. 

55  :  25.  Mr.  Sheepskin,  applied  to  the  lawyer,  because  cf 
his  deeds  and  writs  on  sheepskin  or  parchm.ent. 

56  :  33.  humanities,  the  subjects  of  study,  chiefly  the  clas- 
sical languages,  which  are  held  to  produce  culture  and  "human" 
\dews  of  life.  In  its  origin  the  term  literce  hiimaniores  or  hu- 
manities was  used  in  distinction  to  literce  divince  or  divinity. 

57  :  2.  theological  science,  i.e.  theological  knowledge  or  in- 
struction. 

57  :  10.  Steele's  famous  school  .  .  .  near  to  Smithfield  was 
"the  Charterhouse,"  also  Thackeray's  school  and  the  scene  of 
the  death  of  Colonel  Newcome  in  his  novel.  The  Newcomss 
(1853-1855).  His  famous  university  was  Oxford.  In  the  reign  of 
Queen  Mary  (1552-1558),  "Smithfield"  was  the  common  place 
for  burning  "heretics,"  or  "martyrs,"  as  one  will. 


518  HENRY    ESMOND 

57  :  23.  protomartyr.  St.  Stephen,  the  first  martyr  among 
the  Apostles.  Cf.  Acts  vii.  54-60.  this  one's  fire,  etc.  See  the 
Lives  of  the  Saints  for  wonders  corresponding  to  these  in  the 
accounts  of  the  early  Christians. 

57  :  38.  Ridley's  fire.  Nicholas  Ridley,  a  bishop  of  the 
English  Church,  was  burned  at  Oxford  in  1555. 

57  :  39.  Campion's  axe.  Edmund  Campion,  an  English 
Jesuit  priest,  active  as  a  missionary  in  England,  was  executed 
at  Tyburn  in  1581. 

58  :  1.  Southwell  the  Jesuit.  Cf.  29:  28.  Sympson  the 
Protestant.  The  martyrdom  of  Mr.  John  Simson  and  Mr.  John 
Ardelej^  in  1555  in  the  reign  of  Mary  is  told  of  in  Fox's  Book  of 
Martyrs,  Book  XI,  Section  xiii. 

58  :  3.  Monsieur  Rycaut's  History  of  the  Turks.  Sir  Paul 
R3^caut  was  an  English  traveller,  historian,  and  diplomat,  and 
not  French,  as  Thackeray  seems  to  indicate.  His  History  of 
the  Turks,  1623-1699,  was  written  largely  from  personal  knowl- 
edge, between  1680  and  1700,  the  year  of  his  death.  He  had  pre- 
viously written  in  1670  the  Present  State  of  the  Ottoman  Empire. 

58  :  5.  rt'shing  upon  death  in  battle  as  upon  certain  Paradise. 
Very  much  o'le  same  attitude  by  the  Japanese  was  witnessed  in 
the  recent  Russo-Japanese  War,  1903-1905.  in  the  great  Mogul's 
dominions.  The  reference  is  to  India,  possessed  by  the  English 
for  two  hundred  years,  in  which  country  Thackeray  was  born 
of  English  parents  in  1811.  The  current  belief  that  "people 
fling  themselves  by  hundreds  under  the  cars  of  the  idols  an- 
nually," seems  exaggerated.  The  car  of  Juggernaut  is  in- 
tended, which  is  attached  to  every  large  temple.  "There  have 
doubtless  been  instances  of  pilgrims  throwing  themselves  under 
the  wheels  in  a  frenzy  of  religious  excitement,  but  such  instances 
have  always  been  rare,  and  are  now  unknown."  —  Sir  W.  W. 
Hunter,  quoted  in  the  Century  Dictionary.  Probably  the 
opinion  that  "widows  burn  themselves  on  their  husband's 
bodies"  or  bury  themselves  alive  with  the  bodies,  may  also 
admit  of  modification. 


I 


NOTES  519 

58  :  15.  Magdalen  College  in  Oxford,  which  Steele  and 
Addison  attended,  and  one  of  the  most  noted  of  Oxford's  many 
colleges.  I  wish  Joe  Addison  were  here.  So  59 :  5,  "I  wish 
Joseph  Addison  was  here."  The  friendship  between  Steele  and 
Addison,  continued  from  youth,  and  still  kept  up  in  the  Taller 
and  the  Spectator  days  (1709-1712),  was  afterward  not  so  inti- 
mate, partly  on  account  of  Steele's  unfortunate  habits,  but 
chiefly  by  reason  of  Addison's  official  positions,  culminating  in 
the  secretaryship  of  state  (1717)  and  his  marriage  with  the 
Dowager  Countess  of  Warwick  (1716). 

58  :  17.  College  of  Jesuits.  "College"  is  here  used  in  a 
dififerent  sense  from  "Magdalen  College"  just  above.  It  has 
its  primary  meaning  of  an  organized  association  for  a  common 
purpose. 

58  :  21.  the  black  coat  .  .  .  this  sorry  red  one.  The 
"black"  coat  was  the  cassock  of  the  English  clergyman;  the 
"red"  coat  the  British  soldier's  uniform. 

58  :  30.  deteriora  sequi,  I  have  followed  after  the  worse 
things.  "Dick  the  scholar"  quotes  Latin,  adapting  a  fragment 
from  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  VII,  21. 

59  :  18.  righteously  taking  it,  as  I  think  now.  This  is 
Thackeray's  own  opinion,  but  the  first  person  is  intended 
to  refer  to  the  assumed  writer  of  the  Memoirs,  Henry 
Esmond. 

60  :  30.  Chatteris.  There  is  a  place  in  Cambridgeshire  not 
far  from  Ely  Cathedral  with  this  name.  Whether  this  be  meant 
is  uncertain. 

60  :  36.  Bristol.  A  seaport  in  southwestern  England  on 
the  Avon,  a  branch  of  the  sea,  from  which  Ireland  could  easily 
be  reached. 

61  :  5.  the  fatal  battle  of  the  Boyne,  the  last  stand  of  the 
deposed  King  James  II,  on  the  Bojme,  the  principal  river  of  east- 
ern Ireland,  where  he  was  defeated  Juty  1,  1690,  bj^  William  III. 

61  :  7.  the  town  of  Trim,  in  County  Meath,  Ireland,  a  little 
northwest  from  Dublin. 


520  HENRY   ESMOND 

62  :  16.  unicum  filium  suum  dilectissimum,  his  only  and 
dearly  beloved  son.  This  is  adapted  from  the  Vulgate,  the 
Latin  version  of  the  Scriptures  accepted  as  the  authorized  version 
of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

63  :  24.  bar  in  Henry  Esmond's  shield.  The  "bar"  on  the 
"shield,"  a  device  in  heraldry,  refers  to  the  "bar  sinister,"  due 
to  Henry  Esmond's  supposed  unfortunate  birth. 

64  :  6.  maxima  debetur  pueris  reverentia,  the  greatest  regard 
is  due  children.  From  Juvenal's  Satires,  XIV,  47,  save  that  the 
dative  singular,  puero  (youth),  is  there  used  instead  of  Thack- 
eray's plural,  pueris  (children). 

64  :  13.  Saccharissa,  Sweet  one.  In  imitation  of  Edmund 
Waller  (1605-1685),  a  popular  poet  who  had  recently  died,  and 
who  had  celebrated  the  Lady  Dorothy  Sidney  under  this 
name. 

65  :  9.  O  Dea  certd,  O  goddess  surely.  Thackeray  comes 
back,  after  the  long  historical  and  introductory  digression  of 
Chapters  II-VI  and  beginning  of  VII  (pp.  10  to  65)  to  the  im- 
pression which  t^ie  first  sight  of  Lady  Castlewood  made  upon 
the  lad,  Harry  Esmond,  and  now  takes  up  the  thread  of  the 
story  let  fall  by  Chapter  I.     See  note  on  5 :  17. 

66  :  38.  catechiser,  i.e.  instructor  in  the  catechism  or  on 
religious  matters. 

68  :  4.  Grand  Lama  of  Tibet.  The  head  of  both  church  and 
state  in  Tibet,  a  country  in  Central  Asia,  of  which  little  was  and 
is  known,  bonzes  (1.  6)  are  the  Buddhist  monks  in  that 
sovereign's  attendance  and  worship. 

68  :  31.  vacuae  sedes  et  inania  arcana,  empty  seats  and 
useless  treasures.  Virgil's  ^neid,  VI,  269,  uses  the  somewhat 
similar  collocation,  perque  domos  Ditis  vacuas  et  inania  regna. 
Thackeray's  tendency  toward  moralizing  is  seen  in  the  lines 
27-39,  and  is  a  rather  frequent  characteristfc  of  this  story, 
despite  its  historical  background,  as  well  as  in  his  novels  of 
contemporary  life. 

69  :  15.    his  parts,  i.e.  his  qualities  or  talents. 


NOTES  621 

69  :  35.  shooting  .  .  .  pitching  the  quoit,  etc.  Thackeray 
is  giving  a  list  of  the  English  country  pastimes. 

71  :  23.  Old  Lady  Blenkinsop  Jointure.  The  name  by  its 
mere  sound  and  meaning  conveys  some  conception  of  the  char- 
acter, just  as  5:  23,  "Mrs.  Worksop."  So,  1.  25,  Mistress 
Crookshank;  1.  32,  Bryan  Hawkshaw;  1,  33,  Bramblebrook ;  73:  4, 
Nancy  Sievewright,  etc. 

72  ;  14.  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu  brought  .  .  .  inocu- 
lation from  Turkey.  Lady  Mary  (1689-1762),  wife  of  Edward 
Wortley  Montagu,  who  was  ambassador  to  Turkey  for  two  years 
(1716-1718),  having  observed  the  practice  of  inoculation  for  the 
prevention  a  smallpox,  wrote  about  it  in  her  "Letters"  and 
assisted  in  introducing  it  into  England. 

73  :  25.  Waller  or  Ovid.  Both  were  love  poets.  For 
"Waller"  see  the  note  on  "Saccharissa,"  64:  13.  Ovid,  or 
Publius  Ovidius  Naso  (43  B.C.-18  a.d.),  was  one  of  the  chief 
Latin  writers  of  the  Augustan  Age,  and  while  often  licentious, 
has  always  been  a  favorite  with  English  authors.  He  wrote  the 
Amores  (Loves),  Ars  Amatoria  (Art  of  Love),  Heroides  (imagi- 
nary love-letters  from  love-sick  heroines),  etc.,  besides  the  nobler 
Metamorphoses  (treating  the  old  Greek  myths).  Cf.  88  :  39, 
"turned  some  of  Ovid's  epistles  into  rhymes";  these  were  the 
Heroides. 

80  :  29.    salaams,  low  Oriental  ceremonious  greetings. 

81  :  25.  Montaigne's  Essays.  Michel  de  Montaigne  (1533- 
1592),  a  French  writer,  may  be  called  the  father  of  the  modern 
light  essay,  reflective  and  playful  alike,  of  which  English  litera- 
ture has  many  delightful  examples. 

82  :  31.  a  molehill,  as  we  know  in  King  William's  case,  can 
upset  an  empire.  William  III  was  riding  through  the  Park  at 
Hampton  Court,  February  20,  1702,  on  his  favorite  horse 
Sorrel,  which  stumbled  on  a  molehill,  causing  the  King  to  fall 
and  break  his  collar-bone.  He  was  carried  to  Kensington 
Palace,  had  an  ague-fit,  and  died  on  March  8. 

83  :  4.    Venice  glass,  glass  made  at  Venice,  noted  for  its 


522  HENRY   ESMOND 

great  delicacy  and  beauty.  The  term  usually  refers  to  objectt; 
made  of  glass;  but  here  is  used  for  a  small  hand-mirror.  Cf. 
1.  28  and  89 :  25. 

83  :  36.  the  Grand  Turk.  A  reference  to  the  Sultan  with 
his  many  wives. 

84  :  19.  would  have  liked  to  have  kissed.  A  past  tense  piled 
upon  a  past,  instead  of  the  present  infinitive. 

84  :  20.  like  the  lass  in  Mr.  Prior's  pretty  poem.  The 
reference  is  to  Prior's  poem,  The  Garland,  Stanza  ix: 

"At  dawn  poor  Stella  danc'd  and  sung, 
The  am'rous  youth  around  her  bow'd; 
At  night  her  fatal  knell  was  rung; 
I  saw  and  kiss'd  her  in  her  shroud." 

Cf.  also  Robert  Browning's  lyric,  Evelyn  Hope. 

84  :  35.  dryads  .  .  ,  river-nymphs,  fabled  creatures  of  the 
woods  and  rivers  in  classical  mythology.  Similarly,  Vulcan 
(1,  36)  was  the  blacksmith  among  the  Latin  gods,  and  Venus 
(1.  37)  the  goddess  of  love  and  beauty. 

85  :  1.  a  mute  at  a  funeral,  a  professional  mourner,  suitably 
clad  in  black,  who  is  furnished  by  the  undertaker  and  is  both 
ornament  and  assistant  at  funeral  obsequies. 

87  :  4.  St.  James's.  The  palace  formerly  used  as  the  royal 
residence  of  the  English  kings.  It  was  first  used  so  by  Henry 
VIII  and  was  enlarged  by  Charles  I.  While  no  longer  the  royal 
residence,  yet  the  "Court  of  St.  James"  is  still  the  name  popu- 
larly given  from  long  usage  to  the  English  court. 

87  :  5.  the  Prince  George,  and  the  Princess  Anne,  i.e.  Prince 
George  of  Denmark  and  his  wife,  the  Princess  Anne,  daughter 
of  James  II,  who  sided  with  William  and  Mary  in  the  Revolu- 
tion of  1688,  and  later  succeeded  to  the  throne  as  Queen  Anne. 

88  :  16.  Mr.  Thomas  Parr  lived  to  be  a  hundred  and  sixty 
years  old.  "Old  l^arr"  died  in  1635  and  was  said  to  have  been 
one  hundred  and  fifty-two  years  old  at  his  death. 

88  :  19.    beaux  yeux,  beautiful  eyes. 


NOTES  523 

88  :  31.  Chloe  .  .  ,  Strephon.  Characteristic  names  de- 
rived from  the  Greek  pastoral  romances  for  shepherdess  and 
shepherd. 

89  :  3.  CEnone  called  after  Paris,  and  Medea  bade  Jason 
come  back.  These  stories  are  told  in  Ovid's  Heroides;  see  note 
on  73  :  25.  CEnone  was  beloved  by  Paris,  but  deserted  for  Helen 
of  Troy.  Tennyson  has  written  two  well-known  poems  on  the 
subject  of  CEnone. 

Jason,  going  with  the  Argonauts  to  win  the  Golden  Fleece,  is 
taught  by  the  sorceress  Medea  how  to  avoid  the  attendant  dan- 
gers and  to  obtain  the  fleece.  She  marries  him  and  they  go  to 
live  at  Corinth,  where  later  Jason  abandons  her.  Cf.  92 :  34-38, 
'"Twas  after  Jason  left  her,  no  doubt  .  .  .  that  Medea  became 
a  learned  woman  and  a  great  enchantress."  The  story  of 
Medea  was  put  into  dramatic  form  by  Euripides,  the  Greek 
tragic  poet;  cf.  75  :  37  and  note  on  1  :  1. 

90  :  2.  a  merchant  on  'Change,  i.e.  on  the  Stock  Exchange, 
where  stocks,  bonds,  and  other  values  are  bought  and  sold. 
indocilis  pauperiem  pati,  unwilling  to  endure  poverty.  Horace, 
Odes,  I,  i,  18. 

90  :  20.  usher,  explained  by  "house  tutor."  The  French 
expression  for  this  office  is  huissier. 

90  :  29.  Corderius  and  Lily.  The  authors  of  Latin  text- 
books. Mathurin  Corderius  or  Cordier  (1478-1564),  a  French 
humanist  and  professor  at  Paris,  was  noted  for  his  pure  Latin 
style.  William  Lily  (1468-1522),  a  noted  English  grammarian, 
was  the  friend  and  associate  of  Colet,  Erasmus,  and  Sir  Thomas 
More  in  the  movement  of  the  New  Learning.  His  Latin  Gram- 
mar, revised  in  1540,  altered  and  shortened  in  1572,  was  long  the 
text-book  of  English  youth,  and  was  evidently  the  one  known 
to  Shakespeare  and  cited  by  him  in  the  Merry  Wives  of  Wind- 
sor, IV,  1,  and  in  other  plays. 

91  :  6.  a  Princess  of  a  noble  house  in  Drury  Lane,  i.e.  an 
actress  of  Drury  Lane  Theatre.  Drury  Lane  Theatre  was 
opened  after  the  Restoration  in  1663  under  the  management  of 


524  HENRY   ESMOND 

Tom  Killigrew  (see  13 :  34) ,  and  was  rebuilt  by  Sir  Christopher 
Wren.  The  respectabilitj^  of  the  street  Drury  Lane  began  to 
wane  at  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century. 

91  :  8.  pudet  haec  opprobria  dicere  nobis,  we  are  ashamed 
to  speak  of  these  disgraceful  things.  The  original  quotation, 
from  Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  I,  758-9,  reads:  pudet  hoec  oppro- 
bria nobis  et  did  potuisse,  et  non  potuisse  rejelli. 

92  :  6.  Rosamond  ...  of  Mr.  Addison's  opera,  Addison's 
opera  "Rosamond"  was  produced  at  the  Drury  Lane  Theatre 
in  1707.  The  story  of  Rosamond  was  associated  with  Wood- 
stock, the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  residence,  and  the  opera  was 
accordingly  "Inscribed  to  Her  Grace,  the  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough." 

92  :  12.  Billingsgate.  The  vile  language  used  by  the  fish- 
wives and  others  in  the  fishmarket  at  Billingsgate  near  London 
Bridge. 

93  :  10.  Your  Horaces,  and  Ovids,  and  Virgils.  "Horace," 
or  Quintus  Horatius  Flaccus  (65-8  b.c),  the  best  known  of  all 
Roman  poets  for  his  Odes,  Satires,  Epistles,  etc.  For  "Ovid," 
see  73:  25.  "Virgil,"  or  Publius  Vergilius  Maro  (70-19  b.c), 
the  greatest  of  Roman  epic  and  pastoral  poets,  author  of  the 
Eclogues  or  Bucolics,  the  Georgics,  and  the  yEneid. 

93  :  16.  there  are  no  nunneries  permitted  by  our  church. 
Thackeray  seems  not  to  have  known  that  as  a  result  of  the  High 
Church  movement  the  Sisters  of  Mercy  had  been  established  in 
the  English  Church  in  1847. 

94:2.  between  "Green  Sleeves"  and"  Lillibullero."  "Green- 
sleeves"  is  a  ballad  sung  to  a  tune  of  the  same  name,  viz.  "a 
New  Courtly  Sonet  of  the  Lady  Greensleeves  to  the  new  tune  of 
Greensleeves,"  printed  in  1584  and  given  in  Child's  English  and 
Scottish  Popular  Ballads.  "Lillibullero"  is  a  political  song 
writtoi)  about  1686,  lampooning  James  XL 

95  :  30.  with  Wake  and  Sherlock,  with  Stillingfleet  and 
Patrick.  WiUiam  Wake  (1657-1737),  Archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury, was  author  of  Exposition  of  the  Doctrine  of  the  Church  of 


NOTES  525 

England  (1686),  State  of  the  Church  and  Clergy  of  England  in 
their  Councils,  etc.,  historically  deduced  (1703),  the  latter  directed 
against  a  work  of  Atterbury's.  William  Sherlock  (1641-1707), 
at  first  a  non-juring  clergyman,  later  yielded  and  became  Dean 
of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  in  1691.  His  son,  Thomas  Sherlock 
(1678-1761),  was  Bishop  of  London,  and  Thackeray  may  have 
confused  the  two.  Edward  Stillingfleet  (1635-1699)  had  been 
Dean  of  St.  Paul's  and  was  made  Bishop  of  Worcester  in  1689. 
Simon  Patrick  (1626-1707),  consecrated  Bishop  of  Chichester 
in  1689  and  in  1691  translated  to  Ely,  became  one  of  the  chief 
lights  in  the  revival  of  spiritual  life  in  the  English  Church  toward 
the  close  of  the  seventeenth  centur3\ 

95  :  39.  Bishop  Taylor  .  .  .  Mr.  Baxter  and  Mr.  Law. 
Jeremy  Taylor  (1613-1667),  "the  Shakespeare  of  divines," 
author  of  the  eloquent  Holy  Living  (1650)  and  Holy  Dying 
(1651).  Being  a  royalist  he  lost  his  "living"  in  1642,  but  after 
the  Restoration  was  made  Bishop  of  Down  and  Connor  in 
Ireland.  Richard  Baxter  (1615-1691)  is  known  for  his  popular 
work,  The  Saint's  Everlasting  Rest  (1650).  William  Law  (1686- 
1761)  did  not  write  his  Serious  Call  to  a  Devout  and  Holy  Life 
until  1728,  and  Thackeray  misses  the  date  badly. 

96  :  12.  the  divinities  of  Olympus.  Mt.  Olj^mpus,  on  the 
border  between  Thessaly  and  Macedonia  in  northern  Greece, 
a  loftj'"  peak  nearly  ten  thousand  feet  high,  was  regarded  by  the 
ancients  as  the  particular  abode  of  their  deities. 

96  :  31.     Marys  who  bring  ointment.     Cf.  John  xii,  3. 

97  :  34.  spinnet,  a  musical  instrument  like  the  harpsichord, 
only  smaller  and  lighter  in  tone. 

98  :  29.  nag  .  .  .  hack  .  .  .  bay  gelding  .  .  .  coach- 
horses  .  .  .  sorrel.  The  English  love  of  horses,  thus  empha- 
sized, is  proverbial. 

99  :  7.  Trumpington  ale.  Trumpington  is  a  small  place 
south  of  Cambridge,  long  a  resort  of  Cambridge  students. 

99  :  38.  highty-tighty,  a  dialectical  pronunciation  of  hoity- 
toity  !     An  exclamation  of  disapprobation. 


526  HENRY   ESMOND 

101  :  14.       my  knight  longs  for  a  dragon.     The  old  chap 

books  were  full  of  stories  of  knights  and  heroes  fighting  dragons. 
The  story  of  St.  George,  the  patron  saint  of  England,  killing  the 
Dragon,  was  the  most  popular  of  these. 

102  :  6.  Monsieur  Galland's  ingenious  Arabian  tales.  An- 
toine  Galland  (1646-1715),  a  French  professor  of  Arabic  at  the 
College  de  France,  translated  the  Arabian  Nights  into  French 
(1704-1717). 

102  :  8.  honest  Alnaschar.  The  barber's  fifth  brother  in 
the  Arabian  Nights,  who  invests  his  little  fortune  in  a  basket 
of  glassware,  gets  to  day-dreaming,  knocks  over  the  basket, 
breaks  the  glass,  and  awakes  to  a  penniless  reality. 

103  :  33.  Charing  Cross,  an  important  place  in  London  west 
of  St.  Paul's,  where  the  Strand,  Whitehall,  and  Cockspur  Street 
come  together.  Charing  Cross  was  named  for  a  cross  originally 
erected  by  Edward  I,  in  memory  of  his  Queen  Elinor.  She 
had  died  near  Grantham,  in  Lincolnshire,  and  wherever  the 
royal  bier  rested  on  its  way  to  Westminster  Abbey,  a  memorial 
cross  was  erected.  Cf.  126 :  4-5,  "  the  statue  at  Charing  Cross." 
For  "the  Greyhound,"  see  156:  39. 

104  :  2.  Those  rapid  new  coaches  were  not  established  as  yet. 
Thackeray  must  have  read  the  famous  Chapter  Three  in  the  first 
volume  of  Macaulay's  History  of  England,  but  does  not  use  his 
authority  with  precision.  According  to  Macaulay,  the  "rapid 
new  coaches"  had  been  established  a  few  years  before. 

104  :  7.  pensioner,  one  who  pays  for  his  commons,  i.e. 
board  and  chambers  out  of  his  own  pocket,  corresponding  to 
the  "commoner"  at  Oxford. 

104  :  12.  Emmanuel  College,  Cambridge,  was  founded  in 
1584  for  the  defence  of  Puritanism  on  the  site  of  an  old  Black- 
friars  convent. 

104  :  16.  the  famous  Mr.  Newton.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  (1642- 
1727),  the  mathematician  and  discoverer  of  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion, had  been  a  student  of  Trinity  in  ^661,  a  fellow  in  1667, 
and  professor  at  Cambridge,  1669. 


NOTES  527 

104  :  34.  greges,  i.e.  flocks,  or  groups  of  classes.  A  Latin 
term,  as  many  school  and  college  terms  are. 

105  :  26.    kept  his  chapels,  i.e.  attended  chapel  exercises. 

105  :  39.  Don  Dismallo.  Sir  Dismal.  Esmond's  sombreness 
is  emphasized  throughout. 

106  :  4.  Jacobite,  i.e.  supporter  of  the  banished  James  II, 
or  his  heirs.  The  word  is  derived  from  Jacobus,  the  Latin  for 
"James." 

106  :  6.  to  Burgundy,  i.e.  to  dinner  provided  with  Burgundy 
wine. 

106  :  14.  Whig  .  .  .  Tory.  These  were  the  chief  political 
parties  in  England  all  through  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
Whigs  were  the  supporters  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  of  rule  by 
Parliament,  and  upholders  first  of  William  Ill's  accession  and 
later  of  George  I's.  The  Tories  were  the  conservatives  in  both 
Church  and  State.  The  "Jacobites"  were  the  extreme  Tories, 
opposed  to  the  Revolution  of  1688  and  favoring  James  II's 
restoration. 

106  :  15.  capped  the  proctor,  greeted  the  proctor.  The 
proctor  in  an  English  University  has  charge  of  the  discipline 
of  the  college. 

107  :  15.  a-gadding  after  all  the  Nine  Muses,  i.e.  reading 
miscellaneously  on  all  sorts  of  subjects,  presided  o^-er  by  the 
Nine  Muses.  The  "  divine  Calliope  "  was  the  Muse  of  Epic  Poetry. 

107  :  39.  Chilling  worth  .  .  .  Hobbes  and  Bayle.  William 
Chillingworth  (1602-1644),  author  of  The  Religion  of  Protes- 
tants, a  Safe  Way  to  Salvation  (1637).  Thomas  Hobbes  (1588- 
1679),  an  English  philosopher  and  leader  of  modern  rationalism. 
His  best-known  work  is  the  Leviathan  (1651).  Pierre  Bayle 
(1647-1706),  a  French  sceptical  philosopher  and  critic,  and 
compiler  of  the  Dictionnaire  historique  et  critique  (1696). 

108  :  2.  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  appended  to  the  Book  of 
Common  Prayer  of  the  Church  of  England,  and  at  the  time 
prescribed  for  university  students  and  clergymen  of  the  Es- 
tablished Church. 


528  HENRY    ESMOND 

109  :  4.  saloon-of-arms,  a  translation  of  the  French  salle' 
aux-armes. 

109  :  12.  wars  of  Turenne  and  Conde,  those  of  the  Fronde 
(1648-1653),  the  Civil  Wars  in  France  at  the  time  of  the  minority 
of  Louis  XIV,  between  the  Parliament  and  the  Court. 

109  :  17.  escrime,  attack  and  defence  by  means  of  sword  or 
sabre. 

111  :  33.  a  French  game,  called  a  billiard.  But  cf.  129:  22, 
"his  new  game  of  billiards,"  the  common  English  form. 

112  :  13.  Who  does  not  know,  etc.  Another  instance  of 
Thackeray's  tendency  to  moralize. 

112  :  24.  an  extreme  unction,  the  Roman  Catholic  sacra- 
ment or  rite  of  anointing  in  the  form  of  a  cross  a  person  at  the 
point  of  death  with  olive-oil  consecrated  by  the  Bishop. 

112  :  25.    abi  in  pace,  depart  in  peace. 

112  :  27.  Strephon  and  Chloe.  The  illustration  is  repeated 
from  above,  88:  31;  but  Thackeray  uses  these  illustrations 
merely  as  types. 

112  :  31.    Hymen,  the  god  of  marriage. 

113  :  17.  Baucis  and  Philemon.  A  Greek  myth,  told  in 
Ovid's  Metamorphoses,  VIII,  620-724,  of  a  poor  old  couple  who 
entertained  the  gods  Zeus  (Jupiter)  and  Hermes  (Mercury)  un- 
awares when  all  others  had  refused  hospitality,  and  were  re- 
warded therefor. 

113  :  28.  Dick  Steele  .  .  .  Mr.  Pope,  Mr.  Congreve,  Mr. 
Addison,  Mr.  Gray  .  .  .  Dr.  Swift.  All  these  well-known 
literary  characters  of  the  age  were  treated  in  Thackeray's  Lec- 
tures on  the  English  Humourists  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

114  :  33.  muftis,  and  rabbins.  The  "muftis"  are  ex- 
pounders of  the  Mohammedan  law;  "rabbins"  or  "rabbis," 
expounders  of  the  Jewish  law. 

115  :  8.  in  corpore  vili,  i.e.  flagrantly;  literally,  in  wicked 
body. 

115  :  39.  megrim,  a  headache  predominating  on  one  side  of 
the  head. 


NOTES  629 

116  :  32.  the  Malabar  wives.  Malabar  is  a  district  in 
Madras,  India.  Thackeray  was  much  interested  in  things 
Indian  and  not  infrequently  refers  to  these.     Cf .  58 :  5. 

117  :  32.  Hampton  Court.  A  royal  palace  originally  built 
by  Cardinal  Wolsey  on  the  upper  Thames,  about  twelve  miles 
from  London. 

118  :  6,  Captain  James.  James  Fitz-James,  the  Duke  of 
Berwick,  is  meant.     Cf.  424 :  13-14. 

118  :  31.  Nero,  the  notoriously  wicked  emperor  of  Rome 
from  54-68  a.d. 

123  :  13.  Lord  Firebrace  .  .  .  Lord  Mohun.  Lord  Fire- 
brace  seems  to  be  a  fanciful  name.  There  was,  however,  a 
Henry  Firebrace  (1619-1691)  in  the  generation  before  this  who 
was  active  in  conspiring  to  effect  the  escape  of  Charles  I  from 
prison  in  1648.  Lord  Mohun  is  an  historical  character,  and 
was  killed  in  a  duel  with  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  in  Hyde  Park, 
London,  1712,  a  circumstance  of  which  Thackeray  later  makes 
admirable  dramatic  use. 

123  :  19.    bel  air,  distinguished  appearance. 

123  :  24.  campaigns  with  the  Prince  of  Baden  on  the 
Danube,  and  witnessed  the  rescue  of  Vienna  from  the  Turk. 
Vienna  had  been  besieged  by  the  Turks  in  1683,  and  was  relieved 
by  an  army  of  Germans  and  Poles  under  Sobieski  and  Charles, 
Duke  of  Lorraine. 

126  :  11.  'em  .  .  .  'em.  A  colloquial  usage,  the  remnant 
of  an  older  dative  and  accusative  form  hem,  the  h  being  dropped 
as  in  other  English  words  in  rapid  pronunciation.  It  is  not  an 
abbreviation  of  "them." 

128  :  1.  Covent  Garden.  A  square  to  the  north  of  the 
Strand,  originally  the  "convent  garden."  At  the  time  of  our 
stoiy  it  was  all  built  up  and  its  coffee-houses  were  the  favorite 
lounging  places  of  the  men  of  letters  and  the  army.  The  "  Rose  " 
was  one  of  the  chief  of  these  resorts  and  had  a  very  bad  reputa- 
tion; cf.  11.  25-6. 

129  :  17.    beau  langage,  i.e.  pretty  compliments. 

2  m 


530  HENRY   ESMOND 

129  :  26.  Alsatia,  a  disreputable  quarter  of  London.  Sc 
130:3.     Cf.  13:  27-8. 

130  :  3.  Spring  Garden  was  a  favorite  resort  in  the  time  of 
Charles  I  at  the  corner  or  end  of  St.  James  Park,  but  was  being 
gradually  encroached  upon  by  buildings. 

130  :  5.     mesdames,  i.e.  actresses. 

130  :  31.  M.  Massillon's  magnificent  image  regarding  King 
William.  Massillon  (1663-1742)  was  a  noted  French  pulpit 
orator,  especially  on  funeral  occasions.  His  discerning,  though 
hostile,  portrayal  of  King  William  may  be  found  in  a  footnote 
to  Macaulay's  History  of  England,  Vol.  II,  Chapter  VII,  which 
may  be  translated  thus:  "A  prince  profound  in  his  views; 
skilled  in  forming  alliances  and  bringing  together  men  of  fine 
spirit;  more  happy  in  stirring  up  wars  than  in  fighting;  more 
to  be  feared  in  the  stillness  of  his  room  than  at  the  head  of  his 
armies ;  an  enemy  whom  hatred  of  the  French  made  capable 
of  conceiving  and  accomplishing  great  things ;  one  of  those 
geniuses  who  seem  to  be  born  for  moving  at  their  will  nations 
and  sovereigns ;  a  great  man,  if  he  had  never  wished  to  be 
King."     grain  de  sable,  grain  of  sand,  trifle. 

131  :  1.     Princess  Anne  of  Denmark.     Cf.  87:5. 

131  :  9.  the  famous  antique  statue  of  the  Huntress  Diana. 
The  "Diana  of  Versailles,"  a  Greek  statue  now  in  the  Louvre, 
Paris. 

131  :  14.  Artemis  .  .  .  Niobe.  Artemis,  the  Greek  original 
of  Diana,  was  the  female  counterpart  of  Apollo,  who  was  her 
brother.  Apollo  (Phoebus)  and  Artemis  (Diana)  slew  the  seven 
sons  and  seven  daughters  of  Niobe,  who  had  boasted  her 
superiority  to  their  mother  Latona. 

131  :  15.  Luna  shining  tenderly  upon  Endymion.  Luna  or 
Selene,  the  goddess  of  the  moon,  looking  down  upon  Mt.  Latmos, 
saw  the  shepherd  Endymion  lying  asleep,  and  fell  in  love 
with  him.  Keats's  poem,  Endymion,  is  based  upon  this 
myth. 

131  :  16.    Phoebe,  the    shining    one,  feminine    of    Phoebus 


NOTES  \  631 

(Apollo)  and  hence  a  name  for  his  sister  Diana.  Cf.  above, 
I.  14. 

131  :  37.  saevo  laeta  negotio,  taking  pleasure  in  the  cruel 
occupation.     From  Horace's  Odes,  III,  xxix,  49. 

131  :  39.  a  great  poet  of  our  own.  This  may  refer  to  Milton 
or  to  another  poet. 

133  :  3.  Mistress,  the  form  of  address  usual  for  a  young  un- 
married  lady  at  the  time  of  our  novel. 

133  :  14.  abigails,  serving  women,  the  name  being  derived 
from  the  Biblical  character  in  1  Samuel  xxv. 

133  :  20.  Newmarket,  a  town  in  Cambridgeshire,  near  the 
border  of  Suffolk,  noted  for  its  horse  racing. 

135  :  11.  the  Grand  Seignior,  i.e.  the  Sultan  of  Turkey. 
Hence  the  reference  (1.  22)  to  Ainurath,  a  noted  Sultan  of 
Turkey  from  1359  to  13,89. 

135  :  36.  I  would  rather  marry  Tom  Tusher.  Thackeray 
maliciously  slips  this  in;  for,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  she  does  so  in 
the  end. 

137  :  26.  Beati  pacifici,  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers. 
From  the  Vulgate,  Matthew  v.  9. 

138  :  3.  trapesing,  gadding  about.  The  word  was  popular 
in  eighteenth-century  descriptions. 

138  :  29.  wild  Mohocks,  a  band  of  young  ruffians  of  good  fam- 
ilies who  made  life  dangerous  in  the  streets  of  London  at  night. 
The  date  is  generally  placed  in  1712,  later  than  the  present  stage 
of  our  narrative.  The  name  was  derived  from  the  American 
Indian  tribe  of  Mohawks.  The  poet  Gay  describes  their  reputed 
deeds  in  his  Trivia  (iii),  a  poem  descriptive  of  London  life  and 
the  London  streets,  which  Thackeray  had  read  and  used :  — 

"Who  has  not  trembled  at  the  Mohocks'  name? 
Was  there  a  watchman  took  his  hourly  rounds. 
Safe  from  their  blows,  or  new-invented  wounds? 
I  pass  their  desp'rate  deeds,  and  mischiefs  done, 
Where  from  Snow-hill  black  steepy  torrents  run; 


532  HENRY    ESMOND 

How  matrons,  hoop'd  within  the  hogshead's  womb, 
Were  tumbled  furious  thence,  the  rolUng  tomb 
O'er  the  stones  thunders,  bounds  from  side  to  side; 
So  Regulus  to  save  his  country  died." 

140  :  7.  Tillotson.  John  Tillotson  (1630-1694),  a  theo- 
logical writer,  who  was  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  the  last  three 
years  of  his  life. 

140  :  8.     Your  favorite  Bishop  Taylor.     Cf.  95 :  39. 

141  :  16.  car,  a  wheeled  vehicle,  particularly  one  with  only 
two  wheels. 

141  :  34.  We  read  in  Shakespeare,  etc.  The  reference  is  to 
Othello,  III,  3,  330-3. 

"Not  poppy,  nor  mandragora, 
Nor  all  the  drowsy  syrups  of  the  world, 
Shall  ever  medicine  thee  to  that  sweet  sleep 
Which  thou  owedst  yesterday." 

141  :  36.  far  beyond  Mr.  Congreve.  It  was  a  frequent  sub- 
ject for  discussion  whether  the  works  of  the  chief  tragic  writer 
of  the  Restoration,  John  Dryden  (1631-1700),  and  the  chief 
contemporary  composer  of  comedies,  William  Congreve  (1670- 
1729),  were  not  superior  to  those  of  Shakespeare.  Cf.  the  lines 
in  Dryden's  epistle,  "To  My  Friend,  Mr.  Congreve,  On  his 
Comedy  called  The  Double  Dealer,  1693,"  . 

"This  is  your  portion,  this  your  native  store: 
Heaven,  that  but  once  was  prodigal  befoio, 
To  Shakespeare  gave  as  much;  she  could  not  give  him  more." 

Dr.  Johnson,  in  his  Life  of  Congreve,  selects  a  passnge  from 
Congrevn's  play,  The  Mourning  Bride,  and  asserts  that  none 
in  Shakespeare  was  equal  to  it. 

142  :  18.    furniture,  furnishings,  trappings. 


NOTES  533 

143  :  10.  You  young  Argus.  Argus,  who  had  a  hundred 
eyes,  closed  only  two  of  these  while  asleep,  and  so  watched 
constantly. 

144  :  5.  botte  de  Jesuite,  i.e.  Jesuitical  thrust.  It  is  several 
times  referred  to  as  a  particularly  skilful  stroke  in  fencing. 

144  :  37.  for  we  were  got  on  to  the  Downs.  The  change  of 
pronoun  in  the  interjected  clause  keeps  in  mind  the  device  of 
the  Memoirs.  The  use  of  the  auxiliary  "were"  with  the  parti- 
ciple "got"  is  purposely  archaic. 

148  :  2.  beaver,  i.e.  beaver  hat,  the  tali  hat  customarily  worn 
and  originally  made  from  the  beaver  fur. 

148  :  15.    memento  mori.     Cf.  13 :  36. 

150  :  26.  Doctor  Cheyne.  George  Cheyne  (1671-1743),  a 
noted  physician  of  Queen  Anne's  and  George  I's  reigns.  Thack- 
eray gives  him  somewhat  too  early  a  date. 

151  :  4.  the  Cockpit,  Whitehall,  i.e.  an  inn  located  on  or 
near  the  site  of  the  Cockpit  Theatre  in  Whitehall. 

151  :  9.  Gray's  Inn,  one  of  the  four  Inns  of  Court,  the 
abode  of  the  law  students  and  barristers. 

152  :  2.  You  go  to  Duke  Street,  and  see  Mr.  Betterton. 
Duke's  Theatre  is  of  course  meant,  built  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration  in  1660.  Cf.  155 :  6,  "the  theatre  in  Duke  Street"; 
156:  13,  "the  Duke's  Play-house."  Thomas  Betterton  (1635- 
1710)  was  the  greatest  English  actor  of  his  day. 

154  :  13.  foils  .  .  .  when  the  buttons  are  taken  off,  i.e. 
when  bare  blades  are  used  instead  of  foils,  botte,  thrust.  Cf. 
144:  5. 

155  :  35.  Jack  Westbury.  The  same  as  "Captain  West- 
bury,"  who  was  mentioned  in  Chapter  VI. 

156  :  15.  Wycherley's  "  Love  in  a  Wood "  had  first  been 
played  in  1672.  It  was  the  first  of  his  plays  that  brought  the 
dramatist  fame. 

156  :  26.  Captain  Macartney.  George  Maccartney,  or  Macart- 
ney (1660-1730),  seems  to  be  faithfully  portraj^ed  in  the  story : 
a  good   soldier,   but   dissolute   and  vicious.     Being   Mohun's 


534  HENRY    ESMOND 

second  in  his  duel  with  the  Duke  of  Hamilton  in  1712,  both  in 
history  and  in  our  story,  he  is  also  made  Mohun's  ally  in  the 
duel  with  the  Viscount  Castlewood.  Swift  wrote  in  his  Journal 
to  Stella,  December  13,  1710,  "Maccartney,  Brigadier  Mere- 
dyth,  and  Colonel  Honey^ood  'are  alleged  to  sell  their  com- 
mands at  half  their  value  and  leave  the  army'  for  drinking 
destruction  to  the  new  ministry."  The  basis  for  the  statement 
(403  :  34),  "the  Duke  killed  Mohun,  and  Macartney  came  up  and 
stabbed  him,"  is  also  to  be  found  in  Swift's  Journal  and  was 
generally  believed.  Macartney  fled,  but  surrendered  himself 
in  1716,  was  tried,  and  declared  guilty  of  manslaughter. 

156  :  34.  as  they  did  poor  Will  Mountford.  William 
Mountford,  or  Mountfort,  was  an  English  actor  and  playwright 
who  was  killed  by  a  jealous  army  officer,  named  Hill,  at  Mrs. 
Bracegirdle's  door,  in  1692.  It  was  generally  believed  that  Lord 
Mohun  was  involved  in  this  murder.  See  Macaulay's  History  of 
England,  IV,  xix.     Cf.  123  :  13. 

156  :  39.  Lockit's,  the  Greyhound,  in  Charing  Cross.  The 
tavern  was  known  as  ''  Locket's  Ordinary, "  from  its  proprietor 
Adam  Locket.     Cf.  103 :  33. 

157  :  7.  the  Christian  Hero,  a  manual  of  Christian  ethics, 
a  rather  remarkable  production  for  an  English  trooper,  was 
written  by  Steele  in  1701.  Thackeray's  chronology  would 
make  it  appear  somewhat  earlier. 

157  :  32.  moidores,  literally,  "coins  of  gold,"  formerly 
current  in  Portugal,  having  the  value  of  about  $6.50  each. 

158  :  39.  chairs,  carried  by  bearers,  the  mode  of  conveyance 
at  the  time  in  London  instead  of  the  present  cabs.  Cf.  Pope's 
Rajpe  of  the  Lock,  i,  45-6 :  — 

"Think  what  an  equipage  thou  hast  in  air 
And  view  with  scorn  two  pages  and  a  chair." 

Leicester  Field,  formerly  an  unenclosed  field  west  of  London, 
the  name  of  which  is  still  retained  in  "Leicester  Square." 


NOTES  635 

160  :  24.  Long  Acre,  a  wide  street  north  of  the  Strand, 
which  gradually  obtained  a  very  bad  reputation. 

161  :  16.  Mr.  Atterbury.  Francis  Attcrbury  (1662-1732), 
an  English  clergyman,  who  w^as  made  Bishop  of  Rochester  and 
Dean  of  Westminster  late  in  Queen  Anne's  reign  in  1713,  and 
was  finally  banished  in  1723  for  his  Jacobite  activities. 

162  :  24.  the  Bagnio,  here  seemingly  the  bath  at  the  house 
of  the  surgeon  (cf.  160:  24).  On  the  occasion  of  the  historical 
duel  between  Mohun  and  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  in  the  early 
morn  of  November  15,  1712,  Mohun  is  said  to  have  spent  the 
previous  night  at  "the  Bagnio  in  Long  Acre,"  a  neighborhood 
of  bad  reputation. 

163  :  13.  Benedict!  benedicentes,  blessed  are  those  who 
bless  —  a  formula  of  the  Church. 

163  :  19.  writ,  an  old  preterite  plural  form.  So  174:  26, 
"writ";  but  just  before,  173  :  37,  "wrote."  on  his  table-book, 
i.e.  in  his  note-book  or  pocket  memorandum-book. 

163  :  22.     Gatehouse  prison.    A  prison  at  Westminster. 

171   :  1.      deliquium,  failure  of  vital  force,  unconsciousness. 

171  :  19.  cypher,  initial  or  monogram,  crown,  sign  or 
mark  showing  identity  and  betokening  rank;  cf.  172 :  7-8, 
"the  bauble  embroidered  in  the  corner." 

171   :  23.     a  many,  i.e.  a  large  number,  very  many. 

171  :  28.  the  King  at  Kensington.  The  palace  at  Kensing- 
ton, now  in  London,  but  formerly  a  suburb  about  four  miles 
west,  was  the  favorite  abode  of  William  III  and  of  Queen  Anne. 

172  :  24.  the  Lord  Steward,  Lord  Somers.  John  Somers, 
Lord  Somers  (1652-1716),  a  famous  jurist,  was  one  of  the  Lord 
Chancellors  of  England  (1697-1700).  The  office  of  Lord  High 
Steward  is  created  for  .special  occasions,  as  to  settle  matters  of 
precedence  at  the  coronation  of  a  King  or  to  preside  in  the 
House  of  Lords  at  the  trial  of  one  of  the  peers,  as  here. 

173  :  7.  before  their  peers  at  Westminster,  before  their 
equals,  i.e.  the  House  of  Lords  at  Westminster,  where  its 
sessions  w^ere  held. 


536  HENRY    ESMOND 

173  :  10.  trial  at  Newgate.  The  prison  at  Newgate  was 
used  for  the  detention  and  trial  of  common  prisoners.  Cf. 
4:9. 

173  :  12.  benefit  of  clergy  was  in  early  English  law  the 
exemption  of  the  persons  of  ecclesiastics  from  criminal  process 
before  a  secular  judge.  This  privilege,  intended  to  protect  the 
persons  of  the  priests  in  the  discharge  of  their  duties,  was  in 
time  enlarged  and  extended  to  all  laymen  who  could  read  and 
write  —  an  absurd  anomaly  not  wholly  repealed  until  1827. 

173  :  19.  Duelling  .  .  .-  in  honour.  These  ideas  were  long 
current  in  America;  witness  the  fatal  duel  between  Aaron  Burr 
and  Alexander  Hamilton. 

173  :  30.  saintly  George  Herbert  or  pious  Dr.  Ken.  George 
Herbert  (1593-1633),  the  author  of  the  volume  of  religious 
poems,  The  Temple  (1633),  which  holds  a  confirmed  position 
in  English  literature.  Thomas  Ken  (1637-1711),  Bishop  of 
Bath  and  Wells  from  1684  to  1691,  and  author  of  several  favorite 
hymns:  "Awake  my  soul,"  "Glory  to  thee,  my  God,  this  night," 
etc. 

174  :  29.    gown,  i.e.  ministerial  gown,  as  badge  of  the  office. 

175  :  7.    virtute  sua,  with  his  own  virtue. 

175  :  9.  As  I  have  seen,  etc.  The  first  person  is  Thackeray's 
in  one  of  his  moralizings.  So  175:33-176:12,  "At  certain 
periods,"  etc. 

176  :  3.  a-hunting  or  riding.  The  old  form,  "a-hunting," 
an  original  prepositional  phrase,  is  used  side  by  side  with  the 
simple  participial  form,  "riding." 

176  :  11.  Reficimus  rates  quassas,  we  refit  our  shattered 
barks,  i.e.  we  try  again.  It  is  an  adaptation  of  reficit  rates 
Quassas,  Horace's  Odes,  I,  1,  17-18,  whiclj  immediately  precedes 
indocilis  pauperiem  pati,  90 :  2. 

176  :  13.  noviciate.  The  c  is  due  to  "novice";  note 
initiation  in  the  same  line  with  t. 

176:24.  t'other.  Historically,  "'tother,"  i.e.  "the  tother" 
for  "thet  other"  or  "that  other." 


NOTES  537 

176  :  25.    bilked,  eluded. 

176  :  31.    peers.     Cf.  173:  7. 

176  :  35.  the  bishops  in  the  Tower.  Another  reference  to 
the  famous  case  of  the  Seven  Bishops,     Cf.  35 :  11, 

176  :  36.  We  were.  Again  the  change  to  the  first  person, 
to  recall  that  these  "Memoirs"  were  "written  by  Himself." 
See  title-page.     Cf.  177:  18,  "our  cellar." 

176  :  37.  Governor's  house,  i.e.  house  of  the  governor  or 
keeper  of  the  prison.     Cf.  184:  33,  "Warden  of  Newgate," 

177  :  28.  Killjoy,  a  nickname  showing  Esmond's  sombre- 
ness.  thee  .  ,  ,  thee  ,  .  ,  thee.  The  pronoun  indicates  famil- 
iarity. In  170 :  4-6,  thou  .  .  .  thee  .  .  .  you  ,  ,  ,  you,  both 
pronoun  forms  are  used,  with  a  change  of  sudden  intimacy  to 
one  of  greater  distance, 

177  :  30,  Christian  Hero,  a  quibble  on  Steele's  work  of 
that  name.     Cf.  157 :  7. 

177  :  32.  kissed  ...  on  both  cheeks,  the  current  salutation 
between  men  friends. 

178  :  1.  burnt  sack,  a  drink  that  Falstaff  (Shakespeare's 
/  Henry  IV,  II,  4,  587)  was  much  addicted  to,  as  well  as 
Steele. 

178  :  19.  Prince's  and  Princess's  Court,  i.e.  Prince  George 
of  Denmark  and  his  consort  Princess  Anne.  See  190 :  22-3, 
"Mr.  Steele,  who  was  in  waiting  on  Prince  George."  Cf. 
131:  1. 

178  :  20.  a  gentleman  waiter,  i.e.  a  gentleman  in  waiting  or 
attendance  upon  a  person  of  rank.  So.  179:  17,  "gentleman 
usher." 

178  :  27.    I  mind  me,  i.e.  I  remember. 

179  :  12.  one  of  the  bravest  and  greatest  gentlemen  in 
England,  i.e.  the  Duke  of  Hamilton,  as  told  later  in  the  stor3^ 

179:22.     Niobe,     Cf.  131 :  14.      Sigismunda  is  "  Gismunda,' 
in  the  story  of   Tancred  and  Gismunda,  dramatized   in    1568, 
and  based  on  a   "novel"   of    Boccaccio  {Decameron,   Fourth 
Day,    Novel    1):      "Tancred,     Prince    of    Salerno,    puts    his 


538  HENRY   ESMOND 

daughter's  lover  to  death,  and  sends  his  heart  to  her  in  a 
golden  cup;  she  pours  poison  upon  it,  which  she  drinks  and 
dies."  Belvidera,  the  wife  of  Jaffer,  the  conspirator,  in  Thomas 
Otway's  Ve7iice  Preserved.  She  divulges  the  plot  in  the  belief 
that  the  conspirators  will  be  pardoned;  they  are  condemned 
and  executed,  and  Belvidera  goes  mad. 

179  :  28.  matre  pulcra  filia  pulcrior,  lovely  mother,  lovelier 
daughter.  From  the  first  line  of  Horace's  sixteenth  ode  in  the 
First  Book. 

180  :  5.  imo  pectore,  from  the  depths  of  his  heart.  Cf. 
pedore  ah  imo,  Virgil's  ^neid,  I,  485. 

181  :  11.  dowager's  house,  i.e.  house  of  the  widow  of  the 
former  Lord  Castlewood,  the  "Lady  Jezebel"  of  the  early 
chapters,  "my  Lady  Viscountess"  of  1.  13. 

181  :  18.  her  famous  namesake  of  Florence,  i.e.  Beatrice, 
whom  Dante  immortalized  in  his  Vita  Nuova  and  the  "Para- 
dise" of  his  Divine  Comedy. 

181  :  24.  I  beat  a  drum  at  the  coffin  of  my  father.  Thack- 
eray loves  to  repeat,  as  we  have  seen,  and  has  mentioned  this 
before  in  our  story  (63:  12),  as  well  as  in  his  lecture  on  Steele 
in  The  English  Humourists. 

183  :  8.  The  Kingl  he  is  no  king  of  mine,  etc.  Lady  Castle- 
wood, as  a  true  Esmond,  rejects  William  and  adheres  to  the 
House  of  Stuart. 

184  :  17.  your  new  comedy.  Steele's  comedies  were  not 
written  so  soon.  The  dates  were  The  Funeral  (1701),  The 
Lying  Lover  (1703),  The  Tender  Husband  (1705),  The  Con- 
scious Lovers  (1722). 

185  :  1.  Cheapside,  an  important  business  thoroughfare  in 
the  heart  of  the  old  city  of  London  running  east  and  west,  the 
west  end  terminating  at  St.  Paul's  Cathedral. 

185  :  3.  Smithfield,  an  open  place  north  of  St.  Paul's, 
formerly  a  cattle  market.  Cf.  57:  11-12.  Bluecoat  Boys'  School. 
A  name  for  Christ's  Hospital,  from  the  ancient  dress  of  the 
school.     Both  Coleridge  and  Lamb  were  Blue   Coat  Boys  and 


NOTES  539 

have  written  of  their  schooldays  at  Christ's  Hospital.  Cf. 
Coleridge's  Biographia  Literaria  and  Lamb's  Christ's  Hospital 
Five-and- Thirty  Years  Ago. 

185  :  4.  Chartreux,  or  "Chartreuse,"  the  French  name  for 
a  former  Carthusian  monastery  there,  whence,  by  a  corruption, 
"Charterhouse."     Cf.  57:10. 

185  :  9.    three  pieces,  i.e.  gold  pieces. 

185  :  25.  my  Lord  Marlborough's  letters.  Thackeray  harps 
on  Marlborough's  weak  points  —  here,  his  poor  scholarship 
and  bad  spelling. 

185  :  27.  Mong  Coussin,  etc.  The  Lady  Viscountess  Dowa- 
ger's letter  affects  French  which  Thackeray  cleverly  permits  to 
be  both  dialectal  and  bad.  The  import  of  the  letter  is 
this :  — 

"Dear  Cousin:  I  know  that  you  have  fought  bravely  and 
been  severely  wounded  —  by  the  side  of  the  late  Viscount.  The 
Earl  of  Warwick  never  wearies  talking  of  you;  Lord  Mohun, 
too.  He  says  you  wished  to  fight  him — that  you  are  more 
skilful  than  he  is  in  fencing  —  that  there  is  especially  a  certain 
thrust  you  have  that  he  has  never  known  how  to  parry,  and 
that  it  would  have  been  all  over  with  him  if  you  two  had  fought 
together.  So  the  poor  Viscount  is  dead.  Dead  and  perhaps 
—  dear  cousin,  dear  cousin !  I  fancy  that  you  are  only  a  little 
Monster  —  as  the  Esmonds  have  always  been.  The  wudow  is 
with  me.  I  have  taken  the  poor  woman  in.  She  is  furious  with 
you  and  goes  every  day  after  the  King  (here)  and  cries  loudly 
for  revenge  for  her  husband.  She  doesn't  wish  to  see  you  or 
hear  you  spoken  of :  but  she  herself  does  nothing  but  speak  of 
it  a  thousand  times  a  day.  When  you  are  out  of  prison  come  to 
see  me.  I  shall  look  after  you.  If  this  little  prude  wishes  to 
get  rid  of  her  little  Monster  (Alas !  I  fear  that  it  will  not  be  very 
long),  I  shall  take  charge  of  you.  I  have  still  some  income 
and  some  ready  money. 

"The  widow  is  making  friends  with  my  Lady  Marlborough 


640  HENRY    ESMOND 

who  is  all  powerful  with  Queen  Anne.  This  Lady  is  interesting 
herself  in  the  little  prude,who  besides  has  a  son  of  the  same  age 
as  you  know  who. 

"  Upon  leaving  prison,  come  here.  I  cannot  lodge  you  in  my 
house  on  account  of  the  wickedness  of  the  world;  but  you  can 
find  quarters  near  me. 

"IsABELLE  Viscountess  Esmond." 

To  speak  of  "  Queen  Anne"  in  this  letter  is  a  marked  ana- 
chronism, as  'Hhe  King"  (William)  was  referred  to  just  before; 
and  the  Biographical  Edition  alters  la  Reine  to  la  Princesse. 
But  why  correct  Thackeray's  inadvertencies  ? 

186  :  21.  a  cup  and  cover  of  assay,  a  small  cup  and  dish 
with  which  the  drink  and  food  of  the  king  were  tasted  before 
being  presented  to  him. 

186  :  25.  born  in  the  same  year  and  month  with  Frank. 
Emphasis  is  here  laid  upon  this  as  bearing  upon  the  plot  of  the 
story  in  the  last  few  chapters,  at  Saint  Germains,  near  Paris, 
where  James  II  and  his  consort  were  in  banishment. 

186  :  31.  Fleet  Conduit,  originally  a  stream  flowing  by  the 
western  wall  of  the  old  city,  and  now  one  of  the  main  sewers  of 
London. 

187  :  3.  Temple  Garden,  the  garden  belonging  to  "The 
Temple,"  originally  a  lodge  of  the  Knights  Templars,  but  since 
the  fourteenth  century  the  abode  of  barristers  in  the  Middle 
Temple  and  Inner  Temple  respectively. 

187  :  5.  Somerset  House.  A  palace  in  the  Strand  built  by 
and  named  for  the  Duke  of  Somerset  when  Protector  in  1549, 
and  now  used  for  government  offices. 

187  :  6.  Westminster  .  .  .  bridge,  the  first  bridge  to  be 
built  across  the  river  above  the  old  London  Bridge.  If  Thack- 
eray had  reference  to  the  present  stone  bridge,  as  he  probably 
did,  it  was  not  in  existence  at  the  time  of  his  story.  But  see 
his  statement,  436 :  30. 

187  :  7.     Lambecl:  tower  and  palace.    Cf.  xxviii:  15. 


NOTES  541 

187  :  17.  Surrey,  the  county  immediately  to  the  south  of 
London  across  the  Thames. 

188  :  11.  like  the  towers  of  Cybele.  Cj^bele  was  the  great 
mother  of  the  gods  in  Greek  mythology.  High  peaks  and  the 
tall  oak  and  the  pine  were  sacred  to  her. 

188  :  27.    bar-sinister.    Cf.  63 :  24. 

189  :  35.  Saint  Omer's.  A  cathedral  city  in  northern 
France  where  there  was  formerly  a  Roman  Catholic  college  for 
young  Englishmen. 

190  :  7.  Mais  vous  etes  un  noble  jeune  hommel  You  are 
indeed  a  noble  young  man  !  ' 

190  :  10.  Noblesse  oblige,  i.e.  it  is  expected  of  my  rank  and 
station. 

190  :  16.    raffoler,  rave. 

190  :  27.  Mourning  Bride.  Congreve's  play,  The  Mourning 
5nc?e,  appeared  in  1697,  somewhat  about  the  time  of  Thackeray's 
chronology,  which  he  does  not  keep  very  clear  in  his  stor5^ 

190  :  29.  when  that  wretch  Churchill  deserted  the  King. 
Another  attack  by  Thackeray  on  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's 
many  political  changes.  Cf .  210 :  38.  hung.  Thackeray  also 
uses  ''hanged." 

191  :  6.  Ehl — mon  neveu.  Ah,  my  nephew!  So  1.  13, 
Monsieur  mon  neveu. 

191  :  20.  my  Lord  Ormond.  James  Butler  (1665-1745), 
second  Duke  of  Ormonde.  We  shall  meet  him  later  in  the 
historical  chapters  on  the  Marlborough  wars. 

191  :  22.    black  man,  I.e.  a  man  of  very  dark  coloring. 

191  :  29.  make  meagre,  i.e.  fast,  as  is  the  custom  with  strict 
Churchmen  on  Frida3^s,  the  day  of  the  Crucifixion.  In  1.  31, 
"the  right  way  of  thinking,"  i.e.  in  religion  and  politics — a 
Roman  Catholic  and  a  Jacobite. 

191  :  32.  Prince  of  Orange.  The  Lady  Dowager  Viscountess 
never  calls  him  "  King." 

192  :  21.  get  him  a  pair  of  colours,  get  him  a  position  in  the 
army. 


542  HENRY   ESMOND 

192  :  22.    ensign,  lieutenant. 

192  :  25.    that  accident  befell  King  William.    Gf.  82:  31. 

193  :  3.    quadrille,  a  game  of  cards,     bohea,  a  sort  of  tea. 
193  :  5.    quidnuncs,  gossips,  newsgathers,  and  tale-bearers. 

The  word  comes  from  the  Latin,  quid  nwnc," What  (news)  now?" 

193  :  8.  Dunkirk,  a  seaport  in  northern  France,  on  the 
Strait  of  Dover,  from  which  naval  and  military  expeditions 
were  fitted  out  against  England. 

193  :  9.  the  Prince  of  Orange.  Seemingly  an  anachronism, 
as  it  has  just  been  said  he  was  dead  (192:  34-5). 

193  :  10.  Duke  of  Berwick,  son  of  James  II  and  Arabella 
Churchill,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's  sister  (cf.  12:  34),  who 
possessed  much  of  the  Churchill  family's  military  genius.  Com- 
mander of  James  II's  forces  in  Ireland,  after  the  fateful  Battle 
of  the  Boyne,  Berwick  went  to  France,  where  his  father  was  in 
exile,  became  a  French  subject  and  a  marshal  in  the  French  army. 

193  :  14.  relics  of  the  saint,  i.e.  of  the  deceased  King  James 
II,  who  had  died  at  St.  Germains,  September  6,  1701,  just  five 
months  before  King  William's  accident.  Hence,  in  the  hne 
above,  "King  James  the  Third's  health,"  i.e.  of  the  son  of 
James  II  and  "Pretender"  to  the  English  crown. 

193  :  21.    Autun,  a  cathedral  city  in  north  central  France. 

193  :  24.  Auvergne,  an  old  district  or  county  of  France  in 
the  southern  central  part. 

193  :  26.  Benedictines.  St.  Benedict  (480-513  a.d.),  an 
Umbrian  saint,  founded  the  order  of  the  Benedictines  at  Monte 
Cassino  in  southern  Italy  about  529. 

193  :  32.  Saxe-Gothe,  a  former  duchy  in  central  or  Saxon 
Germany,  with  Gotha  as  its  residence  city. 

194  :  24.  Mr.  Fox,  and  turned  Quaker.  George  Fox  (1624- 
1691)  had  founded  the  Society  of  Friends,  commonly  called 
"Quakers,"  about  1669. 

194  :  31.  Ours  ...  we  ...  us.  The  first  personal  pro- 
nouns again  emphasize  the  fiction  of  memoirs,  and  give  oppor- 
tunity for  Thackeray's  own  views. 


NOTES  543 

195  :  2.  The  Greek  quotation  is  from  the  Odyssey,  I,  32-4, 
and  is  thus  translated  in  the  version  of  the  poet  William  Morris: 

"Out  on  it!  how  do  the  menfolk  to  the  Gods  lay  all  their  ill, 
And  say  that  of  us  it  cometh;  when  they  themselves  indeed 
Gain  griefs  from  their  own  souls'  folly  bej^ond  the  fateful  meed?" 

195  :  2c.  ugly  Anne  Hyde's  daughter.  Queen  Anne,  named 
for  her  mother,  was  the  daughter  of  James  II  and  Anne  Hyde 
(1637-1671),  the  eldest  daughter  of  Edward  Hyde,  Earl  of 
Clarendon,  historian  of  the  Civil  Wars. 

195  :  28.  from  Westminster  to  Ludgate  Hill,  i.e.  from  West- 
minster Abbey  to  St.  Paul's  Cathedral.     Cf.  2  :  6. 

195  :  30.  the  Garter,  i.e.  the  Order  of  the  Garter,  the  highest 
order  of  knighthood  in  Great  Britain,  was  instituted  by  Edward 
III  about  1344-50.  Legend  has  it  that  Edward  III  picked  up 
a  garter  dropped  at  a  ball  by  the  Countess  of  Salisbury,  buckled 
it  over  his  knee  with  the  words,  now  the  motto  of  the  order, 
Honi  soil  qui  mal  y  pense,  "Shamed  be  he  who  thinks  evil  of 
it."  The  badge  of  the  order  is  a  garter  of  blue  ribbon  of  velvet 
bordered  with  gold  and  ornamented  with  a  gold  buckle,  worn 
on  the  left  leg. 

195  :  34.  a  puppet  in  the  hands  of  that  fury  of  a  woman. 
Queen  Anne  was  under  the  influence  of  the  Duchess  of  Marl- 
borough.    See  211 :  2,  and  290  :  3. 

196  :  12.  Portsmouth,  The  principal  naval  station  in  the 
south  of  England,  just  above  the  Isle  of  Wight. 

196  :  21.  the  Captain- General  gone  to  Holland,  i.e.  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  entering  upon  his  campaign. 

196  :  29.  my  Lord  Macclesfield' s  splendid  embassy  to  the 
Elector  of  Hanover.  Charles  Gerard,  Earl  of  Macclesfield,  ac- 
companied by  Lord  Mohun,  was  sent  as  a  special  ambassador 
to  the  Dowager  Electress  Sophia  to  acquaint  her  with  the  terms 
of  succession  to  the  English  throne.  She  died,  however,  May 
28,  1714,  two  months  before  Queen  Anne,  and  her  son  became 


544  HENRY   ESMOND 

King  of  England  as  George  I.  Sophia  was  the  daughter  oi 
Elizabeth  Stuart,  Queen  of  Bohemia,  who  was  the  daughter  of 
James  I  of  England.     Cf.  403 :  29,  and  408 :  11. 

198  :  6.  Mr.  Swift  .  .  .  Gulliver,  etc.  Jonathan  Swift 
(1667-1745),  appointed  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's  in  Dubhn,  in 
1713,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  literary  and  political 
figures  at  Queen  Anne's  court,  serving  the  Tories  and  steadily 
hoping  for  preferment  and  as  constantly  disappointed.  In  his 
Lectures  on  the  English  Humourists,  also,  Thackcra}'-  places 
Swift  in  a  very  unenviable  light.  Swift's  most  popular  work, 
Gulliver's  Travels,  was  not  published  before  1726.  Thackeray 
perhaps  saves  himself  from  the  anachronism  by  dating  the 
ostensible  Memoirs  later.  The  picture  here  described  is  in  the 
First  Part  of  the  Travels. 

200  :  4.  you  .  .  .  thee  .  .  .  thee.  The  ordinary  form  of 
address  "you"  changes  to  the  intimate  "thee." 

200  :  5.  This  sword  hath  been  hanging  over  my  head.  A 
metaphor  on  the  cares  of  those  in  authority.  The  figure  is 
taken  from  the  story  of  Damocles,  who,  envying  the  good  fortune 
of  Dionysius,  ruler  of  Syracuse,  was  invited  to  enjoy  this  fortune, 
and  while  banqueting  looked  up  and  saw  a  sword  suspended 
above  his  head  by  a  single  hair. 

201  :  15.  'listed  .  .  .  had  gone  apprentice  .  .  .  this  seven 
year.  These  idiomatic  or  dialectal  expressions  are  intended  to 
represent  the  artless  answers  of  the  folk-speech. 

202  :  21.  Pall  Mall,  a  fashionable  street  in  London  beyond 
Charing  Cross,  at  the  end  of  which  St.  James's  Palace  was 
located, 

203  :  3.  Captain  Avory,  or  Captain  Kid.  Captain  Avery 
fitted  up  a  vessel  in  the  West  Indies,  sailed  for  the  Red  Sea,  and 
inflicted  much  loss  on  the  East  India  Company  by  his  privateer- 
ing. William  Kidd,  the  notorious  pirate,  had  been  hanged  the 
year  before  this  period  of  our  narrative,  May  23,  1701. 

203  :  6.  Spithead,  a  roadstead  :-ff  the  southern  coast  of 
England  between  Portsmouth  and  liyde,  on  the  Isle  of  Wight. 


NOTES  545 

Admiral  Shovell,  Sir  Cloudesley  Shovel  (1650-1707),  who 
was  made  commander  of  the  British  navy  in  1705,  and  two 
years  later  was  drowned  in  a  wreck  off  the  Scilly  Isles. 

203  :  16.  Portsmouth  .  .  .  Plymouth  .  .  .  Finisterre 
.  .  .  Lisbon.  The  extent  of  the  voyage  is  easilj'-  seen.  Plym- 
outh is  an  important  seaport  in  southwest  England  (Devon- 
shire). Finisterre  is  the  promontory  on  the  northwest  corner 
of  Spain.  Lit:bon,  on  the  river  Tagus,  near  the  sea,  is  the  capital 
city  of  Portugal.  The  expedition  was  engaged  in  the  war  of  the 
Spanish  Succession. 

204  :  21.  that  immortal  story  of  Cervantes.  Don  Quixote, 
of  which  the  three  hundreth  anniversary  was  celebrated  in  1905, 
written  by  Miguel  de  Cervantes  Saavedra  (1547-1616),  the  best- 
known  writer  of  Spain.  The  first  part  of  Don  Quixote  was 
written  in  1605;  the  second  part,  ten  years  later,  in  1615.  Cer- 
vantes died  April  23,  1616. 

204  :  37.    Trinity  Walks,  i.e.  at  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 

205  :  9.  a  mitre  and  Lambeth.  The  mitre  is  the  indication 
of  the  bishop's  office.     For  Lambeth,  cf.  xxviii :  16. 

205  :  17.  Prince  Eugene  (1663-1736),  a  renowned  general 
in  the  Austrian  army,  allied  with  the  Duke  of  Marlborough's 
forces,  and  assisting  him  in  winning  the  battle  of  Blenheim 
over  the  French  in  1704.  He  was  also  engaged  in  the  battles  of 
Oudenarde  in  1708  and  Malplaquet  in  1709. 

205  ;  28.  Cadiz,  the  chief  port  on  the  Atlantic  in  south- 
western Spain. 

205  :  36.  the  war  between  King  Philip  and  King  Charles,  i.e. 
the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  1701-1714.  Philip  V, 
grandson  of  Louis  XIV  of  France,  was  supported  by  the  French  ; 
while  Leopold  I,  Emperor  of  Austria,  claimed  the  kingdom  on 
behalf  of  his  son  Charles. 

206  :  2.  the  alameda,  the  pleasure-ground  or  park  where 
fashion  congregates. 

206  :  5.  Bartholomew  Murillo  (1617-1682),  the  great 
Spanish  painter  of  religious  and  character  subjects. 


546  HENRY    ESMOND 

206  :  17.  Andalusia,  a  captaincy-general  of  southern  Spain, 
comprising  several  provinces,  of  which  Cadiz  was  one. 

206  :  29.  Mori  pro  patria,  to  die  for  one's  country.  From 
Horace's  Odes,  III,  ii,  13,  Dulce  et  decorum  est  pro  patria  mori. 

206  :  35.  Port  Saint  Mary's,  a  Spanish  seaport  eight  miles 
northeast  of  Cadiz.     In  Spanish,   Puerto  de  Santa  Maria. 

207  :  3.  Is  she  going  to  turn  out  a  beauty?  —  or  a  princess? 
etc.  Rather  an  artistic  blemish.  Thackeray  wilfully  tl^rusts 
in  his  accustomed  gibe  at  the  romantic  school  of  novelists,  which 
disturbs  the  narrative  and  does  even  greater  violence  to  the  idea 
of  the  Memoirs,  Thackeray's  works  show  several  instances  of 
this  vein,  viz.,  his  masterpiece  in  the  ironical  mock-heroic,  The 
Luck  of  Barry  Lyndon,  A  Romance  of  the  Last  Century  (1844); 
A  Legend  of  the  Rhine  (1845),  a  burlesque  of  Alexandre  Dumas's 
Othon  V archer;  and  Rebecca  and  Rowena:  A  Romance  upon 
Romance,  as  a  Proposal  for  a  Continuation  of  '  Ivanhoe.' 

207  :  13.  Vigo  Bay,  on  the  northwestern  coast  of  Spain. 
The  English,  with  their  Dutch  allies,  destroj^ed  the  Spanish  fleet 
there,  October  23,  1702. 

207  :  16.  Torbay.  The  ship  was  patriotically  named  from 
Torbay.     Cf.  40 :  28. 

207  ;  18.  Port  of  Redondilla.  Redondela  is  a  littb  farther 
in  the  interior  of  the  same  bay  beyond  Vigo. 

207  :  25.  Bagshot  Heath,  on  the  border  of  Surrey  and  Berk- 
shire in  England,  notorious  as  a  resort  of  highwaymen  and 
suspicious  characters,  like  Hounslow  Heath  near  London. 
Indeed,  Thackeray  seems  to  use  both  names  as  if  synon3aiious; 
cf.  1.  28,  Hounslow. 

207  :  30.  though  Mr.  Addison  did  sing  its  praises  in  Latin. 
Addison  wrote  Latin  verses  on  the  Peace  of  Ryswick,  dedicated 
to  Charles  Montagu,  and  pubhshcd  in  1697,  live  years  before 
the  engagement  at  Vigo.  The  Campaign,  in  English  heroic 
couplets,  was  on  Marlborough's  Blenheim  campaign  of  1704. 
But  neither  of  these  patriotic  productions  corresponds  to  Thack- 
eray's statement  I 


NOTES  547 

208  :  3.  General  Lumley.  Henry  Lumley  (1660-1722)  was 
made  colonel  after  the  battle  of  Steenkirke  in  1692,  and  brigadier- 
general  in  1693,  was  present  at  the  siege  of  Nainur  in  1695,  and 
January  1,  1696,  was  made  major-general.  He  afterward 
fought  at  Blenheim,  Ramillies,  Oudenarde,  and  Malplaquet, 
being  promoted  full  general  in  1711. 

208  :  36.  the  Mall,  a  fashionable  promenade,  shaded  by 
rows  of  trees,  in  St.  James's  Park,  London. 

209  :  9.  Most  of  the  family  quarrels,  etc.  One  of  Thack- 
eray's accustomed  inserted  moralizings. 

209  :  28.  Bloomsbury.  Now  a  district  in  London  in  the 
British  Museum  neighborhood.  It  was  more  fashionable  in 
Queen  Anne's  day. 

209  :  30.  s^unging-house,  the  bailiff's  house,  where  those  im- 
prisoned for  debt  were  confined  until  they  could  meet  their 
obligations.. 

209  :  38.  Monsieur  de  Rochefoucault,  i.e.  La  Rochefou- 
cauld (1613-1680),  the  noted  French  moralist.  The  first 
edition  of  his  Maxims  appeared  in  1665.  His  Memoirs  and  his 
Correspondence  also  hold  a  high  place  in  literature. 

210  :  30.    allowed,  i.e.  conceded. 

210  :  38.  Lord  Churchill — the  King,  whom  he  betrayed, 
etc.  James  II  had  rewarded  the  services  of  John  Churchill 
(1650-1722)  by  making  him  Lord  Churchill,  but  he  joined 
William  of  Orange  in  November,  1688,  was  made  Earl  of  Marl- 
borough in  1689,  and  had  just  been  created  Duke  of  Marlborough 
in  1702.  The  stanch  old  royalist  lady  refuses  to  give  him  any 
title  but  that  bestowed  by  the  Stuart  king,  whose  cause  Churchill 
—  and  many  others  —  had  abandoned. 

211  :  2.  that  vixen  of  a  Sarah  Jennings.  Sarah  Jennings  had 
married,  in  1678,  John  Churchill,  who  later  became  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough. Being  made  as  early  as  1683  a  lady  in  waiting  on  Prin- 
cess Anne,  she  gained  great  ascendancy  over  the  latter's  mind, 
which  continued  even  after  Anne  became  Queen.  Later  she  was 
superseded  in  the  Queen's  favor  by  Lady  Masham.     See  290 :  3. 


548  HENRY   ESMOND 

211  .  19.  Cela  c'est  vu,  mon  Cousin,  That  is  a  matter  o\ 
course,  cousin. 

212  :  19.  such  a  strange  and  sudden  excitement.  Thackeray 
lets  the  end  be  clearly  seen  from  the  beginning,  though  concealed 
from  none  so  much  as  the  two  actors.  The  mother  and  daughter 
are  both  rivals  in  Esmond's  affections,  a  situation  unique  in 
fiction  and  executed  with  masterly  portrayal. 

212  :  26.  across  the  fields  and  meadows  to  Chelssa..  Chelsea, 
now  swallowed  up  in  the  advance  of  the  great  city,  was  then  an 
independent  town. 

213  :  4.  King  Hamlet's  widow  taking  off  her  weeds  for 
Claudius.  Cf.  Shakespeare's  play.  Claudius  is  the  king  who 
has  murdered  his  brother,  the  former  King  Hamlet,  and  mar- 
ried the  widow. 

213  :  12.  Farnham,  in  Surrey,  near  the  border  of  Hamp- 
shire, more  than  halfway  from  London  to  Winchester.  In 
11.  30-32,  "Walcote  .  .  .  lies  about  a  mile  from  Winchester." 

213  :  22.  boxing  the  watch,  i.e.  fighting  the  night  watch- 
man. 

213  :  23.  St.  Giles's,  a  locality  of  London  west  of  Holborn, 
noted  for  its  slums  and  vice. 

213  :  24.    Etheredge    and     Sedley.    Sir    George    Etheredge ' 
(1635-1691)   and    Sir  Charles  Sedley    (1639-1701)   were    two 
licentious  dramatists  of  Charles  II's  reign. 

213  :  26.  Rochester,  Harry  Jermyn,  and  Hamilton.  .Tohn 
Wilmot,  Earl  of  Rochester  (1647-1680),  was  a  poet  and  gallant 
of  Charles  II's  day.  Henry  Jermyn,  Earl  of  St.  Alban's 
(1600-1684),  was  a  companion  of  Charles  II  in  his  banishment 
in  France,  and  was  later  Charles  II's  ambassador  in  Paris. 
Hamilton  was  probably  Count  Anthony  Hamilton  (1646-1720), 
a  French  writer  of  British  descent,  author  of  the  Memoirs  of 
the  Count  of  Grammont. 

213  :  29.  our  Lady  of  Chaillot,  i.e.  the  favorite  of  James  at 
his  country  house.  Cf.  Frank's  description,  435;  19-21,  anc 
443:  11-12. 


NOTES  549 

213  :  38.  the  famous  college  there,  Winchester  School  oi 
St.  Mary's  College,  a  boys'  preparatory  school,  one  of  the  best 
known  in  England,  founded  by  William  of  Wykeham  in  1393, 

214  :  13.  the  Cathedral.  Winchester  is  known  for  its 
splendid  cathedral,  dating  from  the  thirteenth  centur}^,  even 
more  than  for  its  college. 

214  :  31.  point  de  Venise,  Venice  lace,  which  is  conspicuous 
in  the  dress  of  most  of  Vandj^ke's  portraits.    Vandyke.    Cf .  4:31. 

214  :  32.  Mons.  Rigaud's  portrait.  Hyacinthe  Rigaud 
(1659-1743),  the  greatest  French  portrait  painter  in  his  day, 
with  a  rather  florid  style.  This  assumed  portrait  plays  an  im- 
portant part  in  the  plot  toward  the  close  of  the  novel. 

215  :  29.  are  .  .  .  come.  Thackeray  purposely  uses  the 
older  idiom,  in  place  of  '"have  .  .   .  come." 

217  :  4.  Reddas  incolumem  precor,  I  pray  return  safe. 
From  Horace's  Odes,  I,  3,  7,  which  Tom  Tusher  had  read  with 
the  young  Lord  at  Winchester  school. 

217  :  5.  Gaditanian,  an  adjective  derived  from  the  old 
name  for  the  strait  of  Gibraltar,  Gaditanum  Fretum.  The 
reference  is  to  the  naval  exploits  around  Cadiz,  near  the  Strait 
of  Gibraltar. 

217  :  8.  Septimi,  Gades  aditure  mecum,  O  Septimius,  ready 
to  go  with  me  to  Cadiz.  The  first  line  in  Horace's  Sixth  Ode 
of  the  Second  Book.  Tom  Tusher  again  has  recourse  to  his 
Horace. 

217  :  17.  the  verger,  who  has  the  care  of  the  interior  of  a 
church  or  cathedral.  Thackeray  has  just  used  a  number  of 
words  pertaining  to  the  service  and  usage  of  the  English  Church. 

217  :  21.     maid  of  honour,  i.e.  to  the  Queen. 

219  :  6.  I  know  it,  I  know  it,  etc.  The  conclusion  of  this 
chapter  and  this  scene  is  very  fine.  Thackeray  has  written 
httle  in  a  more  exalted  strain  than  the  lines  from  219 :  37  to  220 ; 
17. 

219  :  33.  now  you  are  come  again,  bringing  your  sheaves 
with  ytu.     Cf.   Psalms  cxxvi.   7,  appointed  in  the  Psalter  for 


550  HENRY    ESMOND 

the  Twenty-seventh  Day,  Evening  Prayer,  though  the  heading 
of  the  chapter  assigns  it  to  the  29th. 

220  :  15.  Non  omnis  moriar,  I  shall  not  wholly  die.  Again 
from  Horace's  Odes,  III,  30,  6. 

220  :  27.  blot  on  my  name  refers  to  the  "bar  sinister" 
often  alluded  to,  63  :  24;  188  :  27,  etc. 

220  :  32.  He  has  conformed  .  .  .  they  have  found  a  church 
for  him,  i.e.  he  had  accepted  Queen  Anne  as  his  legal  Sovereign 
and  Head  of  the  Church  of  England.  Previously  he  had  been 
a  non-Juror,  supporting  the  claims  of  James  II.  Yet  Thack- 
eray later  (253 :  32-4)  contradicts  himself. 

220  :  38.  Holy  Advent  season,  the  four  Sundays  in  Advent, 
i.e.  immediately  before  Christmas, 

222  :  22.  grenadier,  i.e.  soldier  of  unusual  courage  and 
ability.  In  its  origin  the  name  had  reference  to  those  picked 
soldiers  selected  to  throw  hand-grenades  and  lead  the  assault. 

222  :  32.  came  Mistress  Beatrix,  etc.  This  apparition  de- 
scending the  staircase,  the  artist  George  Du  Maurier  tried  to  fix 
in  a  well-known  illustration  to  ''Esmond." 

224  :  2.  such  a  rapture  as  the  first  lover  is  described  as 
having  by  Milton.  Cf.  the  awakening  of  Adam  and  Eve  in 
Paradise,  Paradise  Lost,  V,  11-25:  — 

"he  on  his  side 
Leaning,  half  raised,  with  looks  of  cordial  love, 
Hung  over  her  enamour'd,  and  beheld 
Beauty,  which,  whether  waking  or  asleep 
Shot  forth  peculiar  graces." 

224  :  3.    N'est  ce  pas?    i.e.  Is  she  not  beautiful? 

224  :  10.     They've  silver  clocks.    Cf.  21 :  35. 

226  :  8.  steenkirk.  After  the  battle  of  Steenkirk,  in  Bel- 
gium, in  1692,  the  name  was  applied  to  several  articles  of  dress, 
wigs,  neckclothcs,  etc.  Here  the  word  refers  to  the  wig.  The 
hal)it  of  wearing  great  wigs  —  perriwigs  or  perruques —  over  the 
natural  hair  was  well-nigh  universal  at  the  time. 


NOTES  551 

227  :  3.  Lindamiras  and  Ardelias  of  the  poets,  i.e.  of  the 
pastoral  romances. 

227  :  34.  And  so  it  is,  etc.  Another  one  of  Thackeray's 
morahzing  paragraphs. 

228  :  13.  Cleopatra  .  .  .  Helen.  Cleopatra,  Queen  of 
FJgypt,  described  in  Shakespeare's  Antony  and  Cleopatra,  and 
Helen  of  Troy,  told  of  in  Homer's  Iliad,  are  with  common  con- 
sent the  two  most  beautiful  ^\■omen  portrayed  in  literati u'e. 

229  :  22.  Rochester  .  .  .  Grammont.  Cf.213:  26.  Count 
Philibert  do  Gramont  (1621-1707)  was  a  French  nobleman  at 
the  court  of  Louis  XIV,  and  after  the  Restoration  at  the  court 
of  Charles  II.  Count  Anthony  Plamilton,  his  brother-in-law, 
wrote  in  French  the  Memoirs  of  the  Count  of  Grammont 
(1713). 

229  :  28.  Bruxelles,  Brussels.  Thackeray  usuallj^  employs 
the  French  form  of  the  word. 

230  :  13.  Blandford,  Charles  Churchill,  Marquis  of  Bland- 
ford,  the  son  of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  a  promising  lad  who 
died  from  smallpox  at  King's  College,  Cambridge,  February  20, 
1703.     Cf.  210:  36. 

230  :  15.  Dr.  Hare,  i.e.  his  tutor,  Francis  Hare  (1665-1740), 
later  became  Bishop  of  St.  Asaph  and  of  Chichester.  He  also 
tutored  Sir  Robert  Walpole. 

231  :  19.  King  Henry  at  Agincourt,  i.e.  Henry  V,  at  the 
victory  of  the  English  over  the  French  at  Agincourt,  October 
25,  1415.     See  Drayton's  splendid  ballad  on  the  subject. 

231  :  20.  Poictiers,  the  battle  which  the  Black  Prince  won 
over  King  John  of  France,  September  19,  1356,  when  the  French 
King  was  taken  prisoner. 

231  :  37.  the  Sylvester  night,  i.e.  December  31,  the  last  night 
of  the  year. 

233  :  15.  his  Grace,  i.e.  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  father  of 
the  prospective  groom.  The  title  ''Grace"  is  applied  to  a  duke 
or  an  archbishop. 

233  :  36.    Powis  or  Powys,  an  ancient  principality  in  Wales. 


552  HENRY   ESMOND 

235  :  8.  sine  with  my  blode.  Thackeray's  other  scapegrace, 
hero  in  The  Virginians  has  not  mastered  the  mysteries  of 
spelhng,  and  it  is  a  frequent  means  of  humor  with  the  novehst 
in  The   Yellowplush  Papers  and  elsewhere. 

235  :  20.  King's  College  in  Cambridge,  one  of  the  important 
colleges  of  Cambridge  Universit}^,  founded  in  1441  by  Henry 
VI.  Its  chapel  is  celebrated  for  its  beauty.  Esmond  was  at 
Thackeray's  college  "Trinity,"  and  Tusher  was  at  " Emmanuel." 

235  :  28.  Crawley  .  .  .  Alresford,  both  are  places  in  Hamp- 
shire. 

237  :  22.  Je  vous  donne,  etc.  I  give  you  eight  days  to  get 
perfectly'-  w^orn  out  with  your  tiresome  relatives,  out  jour  is  the 
Lady  Dowager  Viscountess's  spelling  for  huit  jours,  eight  days; 
fatigoy  for  fatiguer,  etc. 

238  :  33.  Hampshire  .  .  .  Sussex,  neighboring,  and  con- 
sequently rival,  counties. 

239  :  29.  Brigadier  Webb.  Brigadier-General  John  Rich- 
mond Webb  was  a  connection  of  Thackeray's  maternal  ancestor, 
Colonel  Richmond  Webb.  Colonel  Richmond  Webb's  daughter, 
Amelia  Webb,  was  married  to  William  Makepeace  Thackeray, 
the  elder,  whose  son  Richmond  Thackeray  (1781-1815),  so 
named  for  the  grandfather,  was  the  father  of  William  Make- 
peace Thackeray,  the  novelist. 

240  :  3.  Bonn  is  on  the  Rhine  fifteen  miles  south  of  Cologne. 
At  that  time  it  belonged  to  the  French  and  hence  the  invest- 
ment. 

240  :  27.  as  Mr.  Addison  sang  of  it,  in  Addison's  poem,  The 
Campaign,  A  Poem:  To  His  Grace,  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 
celebrating  Marlborough's  success,  published  in  1704.  See 
Chapter  XI,  "The  Famous  Mr.  Joseph  Addison." 

240  :  38-242  :  29.  Harwich,  etc.  The  geography  of  the 
campaign,  as  told  by  Thackeray,  may  be  easily  followed.  Har- 
wich (240:  38)  is  a  seaport  on  the  east  point  of  Essex,  on  the 
eastern  shore  of  England.  Maesland  Sluys  (240  :  38),  or  Maas- 
landsluis,  is  at  the  mouth  of  the  important  river  Meuse,  or  Maas, 


NOTES  553 

in  the  Netherlands  (Holland),  the  Hague  (240:  39),  the  capital 
city  of  Holland,  is  a  little  to  the  northeast  of  this.  Utrecht, 
Ruremonde,  and  Maestricht  (241:  3-4),  are  all  Holland  towns: 
Utrecht,  the  capital  city  of  the  province  of  that  name,  the  seat 
of  the  "States-General,"  and  the  place  where  the  treaty  between 
the  opposing  forces  and  interests  was  finally  concluded  in  1713; 
Ruremonde,  or  Roermond,  on  the  upper  Maas,  at  the  juncture 
of  the  Roer  and  Maas,  is  in  the  province  of  Limburg;  and 
Maestricht,  or  Maastricht,  still  higher  up  (twenty-seven  miles 
farther  south),  on  the  same  river  and  in  the  same  province,  a 
strategic  position  of  some  importance  and  a  frequent  scene  of 
battles.  Liege  (241:9),  the  chief  city  of  the  province  of  that 
name,  is  still  farther  up  the  river  Maas,  south  from  Maestricht 
but  in  Belgium.  Bois-le-Duc  (241:  10),  or  the  Dutch  "Bosch" 
(literally,  "the  Duke's  pleasure  wood"),  is  just  south  of  the 
Meusc  (Maas),  in  the  province  of  North  Brabant,  Holland.  The 
river  Mozelle  (241:  14),  or  Mosel,  rises  in  the  Vosges  mountains 
in  France,  flows  through  the  northern  part  of  Lorraine,  past 
Metz,  and  past  the  ancient  city  of  Treves  (241:  19),  or  Trier 
and  empties  into  the  Rhine  at  Coblentz  (241:  17).  The  Castle 
of  Ehrenbreitstein  (241:  20),  on  the  eastern  side  of  the  Rhine 
opposite  Coblentz,  is  on  an  almost  inaccessible  rock  385  feet 
above  the  river.  Castel  (241:  28)  is  "over  against  Mayntz," 
at  the  confluence  of  the  rivers  Main  and  Rhine.  Majmtz,  or 
Mayence,  is  south  (on  the  western  bank  of  the  Rhine),  and  Caste- 
north  (on  the  eastern  bank).  Gidlingen  in  Bavaria  (241:  32) 
is  not  located  on  the  ordinary  maps.  The  Neckar  (241:  36),, 
rising  in  Wiirtemberg,  flows  northwesterly,  and  passmg  Heidel- 
berg and  Mannheim  in  north  Baden,  empties  into  the  Rhine. 
Mindelsheim  (242  :  3).  There  is  a  Mindelheim  in  far  south- 
western Bavaria,  twenty-nine  miles  southwest  from  Augsburg, 
but  this  seems  too  far  south.  Marlborough  and  Prince  Eugene 
seem  first  to  have  met  at  or  near  Heilbronn  in  Wiirtemberg. 
between  Dillingen  and  Lawingen,  the  Brentz  lying  between 
the  two  armies  (242  :  8-9).     These  spots,  as  is  Blenheim,   or 


'554  HENRY   ESMOND 

Blindheim,  are  in  the  extreme  west  of  Bavaria.  The  Danube 
(242  :  26),  or  Donau,  river  here  flows  generally  northeasterl}'. 
The  Brentz  enters  it  from  the  northwest  from  Wiirtemberg. 
Going  down  the  Danube  (northeasterly)  are  Dillingen  and 
Lawingen,  and  still  farther  Blindheim,  or  Blenheim;  and  still 
farther,  on  the  north  bank,  Donaixwort  (242  :  10).  Schsllen- 
berg  (242  :  12)  is  a  hill  on  the  south  side  of  the  Danube 
opposite  Donauworth,  where  the  Bavarians  and  French  were 
defeated  July  2,  1704,  by  the  Imperial  and  English  forces. 

242   :  2.     unfortunate  Electress-Palatine.     Cf.  10  :  11. 

242  :  3.  the  famous  Prince  of  Savoy,  i.e.  Prince  Eugene. 
Cf.  205  :  17. 

242  :  24.     Prince  of  Baden,  i.e.  Prince  Lewis  of  1.  38. 

243  :  12.  Why  does  the  stately  Muse  of  history,  etc.  One  of 
Thackeraj'-'s  moralizings.  His  portrayal  of  Mnrlborough's  char- 
acter agrees  closely  with  that  expressed  in  The  English  Hu- 
mourists. 

243  :  35.     Styx,  a  river  of  the  lower  world. 

244  :  1.  Clotho  .  .  .  Lachesis.  The  first  and  third  of  the 
Three  Fates. 

245  :  18.  The  French  right,  etc.  Thackeray's  descriotion 
of  the  battle  of  Blenheim  may  be  contrasted  with  his  treatment 
of  the  battle  of  Waterloo  at  the  end  of  Vanity  Fair  (1848), 
which  is  more  artistic,  the  effects  being  produced  by  suggestion 
from  a  point  far  enough  away,  as  Brussels.  His  direct  narrative 
here  is  a  fine  summary  of  a  brilliant  campaign,  but  for  a  novel 
possibly  somewhat  wearisome.  The  chief  source  used  by 
Thackeray  was  Coxe's  Memoirs  of  Marlborough. 

245  :  19.  Marshal  Tallard  (1652-1 728),  the  leader  of  the 
French  forces,  was  both  defeated  and  taken  prisoner  at  Blen- 
heim. 

247  :  18.  Thackeray  inserts  the  foot-note,  signed  H.  E.,  i.e. 
Henry  Esmond,  to  renew  the  impression  of  the  story  being  his 
Memoirs. 

248  :  10.    vana  somnia,  empty  dreams.  * 


NOTES  555 

248  :  13.  the  King  of  the  Romans.  The  Emperor  of  Austria 
still  represented  the  fiction  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire,  as  the 
representative  of  the  ancient  Ronjan  emperors.  Cf.  James 
Brycs,  The  Holy  Roman  Empire.  Marlborough  was- 
honored  by  the  Emperor  with  the  title  of  Prince  of  Mindel- 
sheim. 

248  :  14.  Berlin  and  Hanover,  the  capitals  of  Prussia  and 
Hanover  respectively.  Stuttgard  (1.  18),  the  capital  of  Wiirtem- 
berg,  or  "AVurtemburg." 

248  :  32.  Amadis  .  .  .  Gloriana.  A  reference  to  the  old 
romance  of  adventure,  Amadis  of  Gaul.  Amadis  falls  in  love 
with  "Oriana,"  daughter  of  the  King  of  England,  and  no  doubt 
Thackeray  confused  the  two  names.  " Gloriana"  is  the  heroine 
of  Spenser's  Faerie  Queene.  Cf.  249:4-5,  "Mr.  Amadis"  and 
"Madam  Gloriana." 

249  :  13.  Eurydice,  the  wife  of  Orpheus,  the  mythical  musi- 
cian and  singer. 

249  :  17.  desipere  in  loco,  to  be  foolish  occasionally.  From 
the  concluding  line  in  Horace's  Odes,  IV,  12,  28,  Dulce  est 
desipere  in  loco. 

249  :  31.  Ghent  and  Brussels,  large  cities  in  Belgium, 
Brussels  being  the  capital.  Here  Thackeray  uses  the  Eng- 
lish form,  but  he  generally  affects  the  French  form, 
Bruxelles. 

250  :  10.  Golden  Square,  a  square  in  the  West  End  between 
Piccadilly  and  Oxford  Street,  with  fashionable  dwelling-places. 

250  :  17.  a  poet  who  writ  a  dull  copy  of  verses  upon  the 
battle  of  Oudenarde.  Is  not  the  "poet"  Thackeray  himself 
perpetrating  a  joke?  The  article  on  General  Webb  in  the 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  quotes  the  last  line  without 
mentioning  Thackeray's  Esmond  and  attributes  it  to  ''a,  poetas- 
ter." 

250  :  23-2.5.  Mars,  the  god  of  war.  Paris,  noted  for  his  beauty 
of  person,  stole  away  Helen,  the  wife  of  Menelaus,  King  of 
Sparta,   and   so   caused  the  Trojan   War.     Hector,  the   chief 


556  HENRY    ESMOND 

warrior  on  the  side  of  the  Trojans  in  the  Trojan  War,  who 
meets  death  at  the  hands  of  Achilles,  as  told  in  Homer's  Iliad. 

250  :  28.  a  la  mode  de  Paris,  after  the  manner  of  Paris 
There  is  an  obvious  quibble  on  the  name  of  the  Greek  hero  and 
the  French  city, 

250  :  31.  Maison  du  Roy,  a  specially  distinguished  body  of 
cavalry,  a  sort  of  King's  Guard. 

250  :  32.  Vendosme  and  Villeroy,  both  celebrated  French 
generals  in  the  armies  of  Louis  XIV. 

251  :  1.  Wiltshire,  a  southern  county  immediately  north- 
west of  Hampshire. 

251  :  5.  Hastings'  field,  the  battle  won  in  1066  by  Wilham 
the  Conqueror  with  his  Norman  followers  over  the  Saxon  forces 
of  Harold,  which  changed  the  whole  course  of  English  history. 

251  :  37.  the  great  Duke.  The  note  as  to  the  insertion  of  a 
leaf  into  the  Ms.  in  1744  is  a  part  of  the  make-believe  of  Thack- 
eray's method  remarked  upon  before. 

252  :  26.     Lazarus,  a  typical  name  for  "any  poor  beggar." 

252  :  30.     Muscipulus,  i.e.  the  insignificant  mouse. 

253  :  19.  in  a  News  Letter,  the  antecedent  of  a  publication 
like  Steele's  Taller  (1709-1711)  and  Spectator  (1711-1712). 

253  :  32.  firm  in  his  principles.  But  has  Thackeray  for- 
gotten he  hae  told  us  that  the  Ex-Dean  had  "conformed"? 
See  220 :  32-4. 

254  :  7.    his  governor,  i.e.  his  tutor. 

254  :  11.  Dr.  Bentley.  Richard  Bentlcy  (1662-1742),  the 
great  Greek  scholar,  had  been  made  "master  of  Trinity"  in 
1700. 

254  :  17.  which  Sir  Christopher  Wren  had  lately  built.  Wren 
built  the  librar}^  building  on  the  fourth  side,  completing  the 
quadrangle,  which  is  arcaded  cloister-like  on  the  three  other 
sides, 

255  :  13.  Anacreonticks,  songs  in  praise  of  love  and  wine. 
They  derive  their  name  from  the  Greek  lyric  poet  Anacreon 
(563-478  B.C.).    Bathyllus.    A  freedman of  Maecenas,  the  Roman 


NOTES  557 

patron  of  letters,  noted  as  a  comic  dancer  in  the  panto- 
mimes. 

256  :  3.  Nicolini,  an  Italian  opera  singer,  Nicolino  Grimaldi 
(1673-1726),  who  went  to  England  in  1708.  Addison  praises 
him  in  the  Spectator  (No.  405). 

256  :  9.  Shakespeare,  who  was  quite  out  of  fashion,  etc. 
This  is  an  exaggeration.  There  has  never  been  a  time  that 
Shakespeare  has  not  had  his  warm  admirers,  although  individual 
foolish  opinions  have  been  uttered  by  many  critics 

256  :  12.  Prince  Hal  .  .  .  Ancient  Pistol.  "Prince  Hal" 
appears  as  prince  in  Henry  IV.  "Ancient  Pistol"  is  a  swash- 
buckler, who  by  a  clever  trick  is  brought  to  his  senses  in 
Henry  V.     He  had  previously  appeared  in  II  Henry  IV. 

256  :  34.  remedium  amoris,  remedy  for  love.  It  is  the  title 
of  a  work  by  Ovid,  who  had  previously  written  his  Amores 
(Loves). 

257  :  31.  Observator.  There  was  formerly  a  paper  of  this 
name  somewhat  like  the  Spectator. 

257  :  33.  Mr.  Prior.  Matthew  Prior  (1664-1721),  the  most 
delightful  writer  of  society  verse  in  our  literature. 

257  :  37.  demean.  A  wrong  use  of  the  word,  as  if  to  "de- 
base," being  confused  with  "mean." 

258  :  18.  Dan  Chaucer-,  i.e.  Dominus  or  Master  Chaucer,  the 
father  of  English  poetry,  w^ho  died  in  1400. 

258  :  36.  the  window,  looking  over  the  fields  toward  Chelsea. 
Thackeray  himself  lived  for  several  years  at  Kensington,  and 
the  number  of  times  he  names  these  places  is  born  of  both 
intimacy  and  affection.     Cf.  212:  26. 

259  :  10.    The  gentlemen-ushers.     Cf.  178 :  20. 

259  :  11.  St.  James's.  St.  James's  Square  is  directly  to  the 
north  of  Pall  Mall,  and  St.  James's  Street  leads  out  of  Pall  Mall 
into  Piccadilly. 

259  :  29.    beaux-esprits,  wits. 

260  :  16.  Germain  St.,  or  Great  Jermyn  Street,  lying  between 
and  parallel  to  Pall  Mall  and  Piccadilly. 


^■558  HENRY   ESMOND 

260  :  19.  St.  James's  Church,  Westminster,  in  the  fashion* 
able  Pall  Mall  neighborhood.     Cf.  363 :  25. 

261  :  14.  O,  qui  canoro,  etc.,  O  thou  who  carriest  a  vocal 
song  more  sweetly  than  musical  Orpheus.  Thus  begins  a  Latin 
poem  of  Addison's  addressed  to  "  D.  D.  Hannes,  Insignissimum 
Medicum  et  Poetam,"  D.  D.  Hannes,  distinguished  physician  and 
poet.  Addison  wrote  excellent  Latin  verses  even  in  the  school- 
days at  the  Charterhouse  and  continued  in  the  art  at  Oxford, 
where  he  received  a  promotion  through  this  achievement. 

261  :  38.  my  Lord  Halifax.  Addison's  poem,  Letters  from 
Italy,  descriptive  of  his  travels  in  1701,  was  addressed  to  Charles 
Montagu,  Lord  Halifax  (1661-1715). 

262  :  4.  at  Hochstedt,  i.e.  at  Blenheim.  The  Germans  call 
the  battle  from  the  name  of  this  neighboring  village,  Hoch- 
stadt.  An  earlier  action  had  taken  place  there  September  20, 
1703,  while  Blenheim  was  fought  August  13,  1704. 

262   :  11.    aliquo  mero,  with  some  wine. 

262  :  19.  the  verse.  This  was  Addison's  poem.  The  Caw- 
paign,  in  praise  of  Marlborough's  victory  at  Blenheim,  cleverly 
introduced  by  Thackeray  in  this  way.  The  extract,  263 :  15- 
26,  is,  of  course,  from  Addison's  poem.  In  the  edition  of  the 
poem  used  by  the  editor,  11.  17,  18,  are  transposed. 

262  :  34.  Most  Serene  Elector  of  Covent  Garden,  addressed 
to  Steele  as  a  notorious  frequenter  of  the  taverns  in  that  section 
of  London. 

263  :  40.  scenes  of  shame  and  horror.  This  is  Thackeray's 
realistic  sense  and  feeling  opposed  to  the  spirit  of  romanticism 
and  idealization. 

264  :  24.  Agamemnon  .  .  .  Medea.  Cf.  the  opening  page 
of  the  story,  1 :  5-6,  for  the  same  comparisons. 

264  :  37.  Pegasus,  the  winged  horse  of  the  Muses,  repre- 
sentative of  the  flights  of  the  imagination. 

265  :  4.  Si  parva  licet.  The  complete  clause  is  Si  parva 
licet  magnis  componere,  if  it  is  allowable  to  compare  small  things 
with  great.     From  Virgil's  Georgics,  IV,  176. 


NOTES  559> 

265  :  6.  from  the  banks  of  the  Isis,  i.e.  from  Oxford,  situated 
on  the  upper  Thames,  to  which  the  name  "Isis"  is  applied.  Cf. 
268  :  10,  "Isis  and  Charwell."  The  smaller  stream,  Cherwell, 
flows  into  the  Thames  at  Oxford. 

265  :  10.  since  our  Henrys'  and  Edwards'  days,  i.e.  since  the 
battles  of  Agincourt  and  Poitiers.     Cf.  231 :  19-20. 

265  :  19.  Rheni  pacator  et  Istri,  etc.,  subjugator  of  the 
Danube  and  the  Rhine,  all  discord  has  vanished  from  the  various 
classes  under  him  alone;'  the  knight  rejoices,  the  senator  ap- 
plauds, and  the  good  wishes  of  the  people  vie  with  the  blessings 
of  the  nobles. 

265  :  31.  catalogue  of  the  ships  in  Homer  .  .  .  wearisome. 
Yet  it  serves  to  show  the  strength  and  pride  of  the  army ! 

266  :  22.    magnum  opus,  the  great  work. 

266  :  29.  hac  ibat  Simois  .  .  .  hie  est  Sigeia  tellus,  here 
flowed  the  Simois,  here  is  the  land  of  Sigeia.  From  Ovid's 
Heroides,  V,  33.  This  is  the  passage  Bianca  construes 
with  one  of  her  suitors  in  Shakespeare's  Taming  of  the  Shrew 
III,  1. 

266  :  31.  Mr.  Boyle.  Henry  Boyle,  Lord  Carleton,  who  was 
Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  in  1701,  and  in  1708  principal 
Secretary  of  State,  succeeding  Harley.  According  to  Pope 
Boyle  was  commissioned  by  the  government  to  search  out 
Addison  and  engage  him  to  write  a  poem  on  the  Marlborough 
Campaign,  and  found  the  poet  lodged  up  three  pairs  of  stairs 
over  a  shop  (cf.  269:  7,  "his  garret  in  the  Haymarket").  The 
third  volume  of  the  Spectator  was  dedicated  by  Addison  to 
Boyle,  in  return,  it  is  said,  for  his  good  offices  in  connection 
with  the  poem,   The  Campaign. 

266  :  33.    aliquo  proelia  mixta  mero,  battles  mixed  with  wine. 

267:5.  my  Lord  Treasurer.  Sidney  Godolphin  (1635-1712), 
a  supporter  of  Marlborough,  Premier  and  Lord  High  Treasurer 
in  1702,  created  Earl  of  Godolphin  in  1706.  my  Lord  Halifax. 
Cf.  261:  38. 

268  :  7.    Alma  Mater,  i.e.  Oxford,  his  university. 


660  HENRY   ESMOND 

268  :  10.    Isis  and  Charwell.     Cf.  265 :  6. 

268  :  12.  Maudlin  Tower.  Magdalen  College  (pronounced 
"Maudlin"),  with  its  beautiful  tower,  one  of  the  charming 
features  of  Oxford  architecture,  was  Addison's  college. 

268  ;  37.  Whitehall  and  Co  vent  Garden.  Whitehall,  the 
thoroughfare  continuing  the  Strand,  parallel  to  the  Thames, 
beyond  Charing  Cross.     Covent  Garden,  cf.  128  :  1. 

268  :  38.  Temple  Bar.  A  former  gateway  in  front  of  the 
Temple  dividing  the  Strand  from  Fleet  Street,  whence  its  name. 
It  was  removed  in  1878. 

269  :  4.  the  famous  Mr.  Locke.  John  Locke  (1632-1704), 
the  philosopher  and  author  of  the  Essay  concerning  the  Human 

Understanding  (1690),  who  had  recently  died,  was  appointed 
Commissioner  of  Appeals  in  Excise  in  1689. 

269  :  8.  in  his  splendid  palace  at  Kensington.  Holland  House 
in  Kensington,  the  abode  of  the  Dowager  Countess  of  Warwick, 
whom  he  afterward  married.  It  will  be  remembered  that  it 
was  "my  Lord  of  Warwick  and  Holland,"  the  first  husband 
of  the  Countess,  who  engaged  with  Westbury  on  Leicester  Field 
at  the  time  I^ord  Castlewood  met  his  death. 

269  :  28.  Mechlin  lace.  Mechlin,  in  the  province  of  Ant- 
werp, Belgium,  has  always  been  noted  for  its  lace  industry,  as 
well  as  for  its  cathedral.  Cf.  423  :  1,  "valuable  laces  from 
Malines."  "Mecheln"  is  the  German,  "Malines"  the  French, 
form  of  the  word. 

269  :  32.    Toy,  pi'csumably  the  name  of  an  inn. 

Mon  Cher,  etc.     My  dear,  you  are  as  solemn  as  a 


269 

34. 

sermon. 

270 

18. 

270 

19. 

Mr.  St.  John.     Cf .  xxvi :  36. 

Mrs.  Mountford  (1669-1701),  known  as  a  brilliant 
actress  in  light  comedy,  was  in  reality  dead  at  this  period  of  our 
story,  having  lived  to  be  only  thirty-two,  and  never  "a 
veteran  charmer  of  fifty."  She  was  married  to  William  Mount- 
ford,  who  was  killed  by  Captain  Hill  and  Lord  Mohun.  Cf 
156  :  34. 


NOTES  561 

271  :  4.  the  little  Gheet  river  .  .  .  Anderkirk  or  Autre- 
eglise  .  .  .  Ramillies,  in  the  extreme  eastern  portion  of  the 
province  of  Brabant,  Belgium.  The  river  is  Gheet,  or  Geete. 
Anderkirk  is  Dutch;  Autre-eglise,  French,  i.e.  Second  Church. 
So.  272 :  38,  Overkirk,  Upper  Church. 

271  :  11.  Chiari,  in  the  province  of  Brescia,  Lombardy, 
lorthern  Italy,  whore  Prince  Eugene  defeated  the  French  and 
Spaniards  under  Villeroi,  or  Villeroy,  September  1,  1701. 

272  :  21.    a  bout-portant,  close  to  the  muzzle. 

273  :  14.  afflavit  Deus,  et  dissipati  sunt,  God  breathed  and 
they  were  scattered.     Cf.  Psalms  Ixviii.  1. 

273  :  19.  Grand  Signer's  Janissaries,  a  special  body  of 
troops  or  guards  of  the  Sultan  of  Turkey.     Cf .  135  :  11 . 

274  :  1.  Mr.  Gay.  John  Gay  (1685-1732),  the  English 
poet,  achieved  great  notoriety  by  The  Beggar's  Opera  in  1728, 
His  best-known  single  poem  is  Black-eyed  Susan.  -At  this  date, 
in  1706,  Gay  had  not  yet  produced  his  works.  Farquhar's  The 
Recruiting  Officer  had  just  come  out  in  1706. 

274  :  39.    petit  polisson,  little  blackguard. 

275  :  5.    Vive  la  guerre!    Long  live  war! 

275  :  11.  Master  Grandson,  etc.  Thackeray  returns  to  the 
suggestion  of  the  story  as  Memoirs  and  moralizes. 

275  :  15.  meminisse  juvat,  it  is  a  pleasure  to  remember. 
The  full  quotation  is  Forsan  et  haec  olim  meminisse  iuvahit, 
from  the  ^neid,  I,  203,  said  by  Virgil  of  not  veiy  pleasant  ex- 
periences, and  as  a  quotation  deflected  from  its  original  meaning. 

277  :  3.  German  officer.  In  1.  18  it  is  ''Austrian  officer"; 
but  again,  11.  31-32,  "in the  Bavarian  Elector's  service."  There 
is  needless  confusion  here.  Bavaria  was  on  the  side  of  the 
French,  opposed  to  the  Emperor  of  Austria.  Von  Holz  (1.  31) 
is  German  for  "Holt." 

277  :  20.  Pandour,  formerly  a  member  of  the  Austrian 
infantry,  noted  for  their  cruelty. 

278  :  31.  the  recusant  bishops,  i.e.  those  who  refused  to 
acknowledge  William  and  Mary. 


562  HENRY    ESMOND 

278  :  32.  Bishop  of  Southampton.  Southampton  is  the 
seaport  of  Hampshire,  below  Winchester.  But  note  the  con- 
tradiction in  220 :  32. 

278  :  32.  Collier  is  Bishop  of  Thetford.  Jeremy  ColHer 
(1650-1726)  was  a  non-juring  clergyman  and  noted  contro- 
versialist. At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  of  1688,  he  contended 
that  the  throne  was  not  vacant,  and  he  was  for  a  time  imprisoned. 
Thetford  is  the  old  capital  of  East  Anglia  (Norfolk  and 
Suffolk). 

279  :  14.    mon  capitaine,  captain. 

279  :  18.  Pekin  .  .  .  Paraguay,  in  China  ...  or  ...  in 
South  America,  i.e.  anywhere  and  everywhere. 

279  :  27.  a  petty  German  prince,  i.e.  the  Elector  of  Hanover, 
afterward  George  I.  See  the  same  thought  expanded  in  the 
Lectures  on  the  Four  Georges. 

280  :  10.  Almanza.  A  victory  gained,  April  25,  1707,  at 
Almansa,  in  the  province  of  Albacete,  in  southeastern  Spain, 
by  the  Duke  of  Berwick. 

280  :  20.  La  Hogue,  a  fort  near  the  extremity  of  the  penin- 
sula, northwest  of  Cherbourg,  France,  off  which  the  English 
and  Dutch  won  a  naval  victory  over  the  French,  May  19, 
1692. 

280  :  27.  Oudenarde,  in  East  Flanders,  Belgium,  some 
thirty-three  miles  west  of  Brussels,  where,  July  11,  170§,  Marl- 
borough and  Prince  Eugene  defeated  the  French  under  Venddme 
and  the  Duke  of  Burgundy. 

281  :  21.  St.  George  for  England.  The  historic  battle 
cry  of  the  English,  St.  George  being  England's  patron  saint. 
There  is  an  intentional  word  play  on  'Chevalier  de  St.  George," 
an  appellation  of  the  Stuart  Pretender. 

281  :  31.  Monsieur  de  Rohan.  Francois  de  Rohan  (1631- 
1712),  Prince  Soubise,  a  general  of  the  French  forces. 

281  :  33.  Marshal  Villars.  The  Duke  of  Villars  (1653-1734), 
one  of  Louis  XIV's  marshals,  who  gained  victories  at  Fried- 
lingen   (October  14,   1702),   Hochstiidt  (September  20,   1703). 


NOTES  563 

Denain  (July  24,  1712),  and  was  defeated  at  Malplaquet 
(September  11,  1709).  guinguette,  from  the  context,  seems 
to  mean  a  light  vehicle.  The  lexicons  consulted  give  only  the 
meaning  "a  small  country-house." 

282  :  18.    noble  coeur,  noble  heart. 

283  :  10.  sombrero,  a  wide-brimmed  hat,  here  referring  to 
the  priest's  hat. 

283  :  11.  St.  Francis  Xavier  (1506-1552),  a  noted  Spanish 
Jesuit  missionary  in  India  and  in  other  parts  of  Asia. 

285  :  29.  Arras,  the  capital  city  of  the  department  Pas-de- 
Calais,  in  northeastern  France,  formerly  noted  for  its  tapestry, 
whence  the  name  often  used  for  it  by  Shakespeare  and  Eliza- 
bethan writers. 

287  :  14.  this  old  Put,  i.e.  old  simpleton,  or  even  stronger, 
old  hound. 

287  :  39.  Penzance,  Cornwall,  the  westernmost  town  of 
England,  near  the  extreme  southwestern  tip  of  the  county  of 
Cornwall. 

288  :  22.  Soeur  Marie  Madeleine,  Sister  Mary  Magdalen,  her 
convent  name. 

289  :  31.  palace  at  Woodstock,  w^hich  had  been  given  the 
Duke  of  Marlborough  to  go  with  his  title  after  the  battle  of 
Blenheim. 

290  :  3.  Mrs.  Masham,  and  Mrs.  Masham's  humble  servant, 
Mr.  Harley.  Mrs.  Masham  was  Abigail  Hill,  a  cousin  of  the 
Duchess  of  Marlborough,  whom  she  supplanted  in  Queen  r"  nne's 
favor.  She  married  Samuel  Masham,  who  through  her  influence 
was  made  baron  in  1712.  She  exerted  the  greatest  influence 
over  the  Queen,  and  statesmen  accordingly  found  it  to  their 
interest  to  cultivate  her  friendship,  Robert  Harley  (1661- 
1724),  a  Whig  and  then  a  Tory  statesman,  was  high  in  favor  in 
the  closing  years  of  Anne's  reign  during  the  ascendancy  of  Mrs. 
Masham.  He  was  Secretary  of  State,  1704-1708,  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer,  1710,  made  first  Earl  of  Oxford,  1711,  was  Lord 
Treasurer  and  Premier  from  then  till  Queen  Anne's  death,  1714. 


564  HENRY   ESMOND 

290:  8.  the  poet  says.  One  of  the  couplets  of  Samuei 
Butler  (1612-1680J,  author  of  Hudibras,  runs:  — 

"He  that  complies  against  his  will 
Is  of  his  own  opinion  still." 

290  :  35.  that  luckless  expedition,  etc.  This  unsuccessful 
attempt  to  invade  Scotland  with  a  French  force  was  made  in 
1708. 

291  :  18.  the  Generalissimo,  i.e.  highest  general  of  all,  is, 
of  course,  Marlborough.     "  Esmond's  general "  (1.  14)  is  Webb. 

291  :  27.  Ghent,  the  capital  city  of  the  province  East 
Flanders,  Belgium,  northwest  of  Brussels.  Bruges  (1.  30)  is 
the  capital  of  West  Flanders  and  still  further  northwest. 

291  :  30.  Monsieur  de  la  Mothe,  the  Count  La  Mothe,  a 
noted  French  general. 

292  :  21.  I  like  to  think,  etc.  The  first  personal  pronoun  is 
here  Henry  Esmond's,  the  author  of  the  supposed  Memoirs, 
but  usually  is  Thackeray's  himself  without  disguise. 

293  :  13.  Lincolnshire  .  .  .  fens.  The  southern  part  of 
Lincolnshire  lies  on  the  lowlands  about  "The  Wash,"  an  arm 
of  the  North  Sea. 

293  :  19.    Electoral  Prince,  i.e.  of  Hanover,  later  George  I. 

294  :  17.  Lille,  an  important  fortified  town  just  across  the 
Belgian  border  in  France. 

294  :  18.  some  folks.  Thackeray  uses  this  dialectal  or 
idiomatic  expression  more  than  once. 

294  :  28.  Lord  Lydiard.  Cf.  278 :  10,  "the  Webbs  of  Lydiard 
Trego  ze." 

295  :  18.    guerre  a  mort,  war  to  the  death. 

295  :  19.  at  Toulon,  the  unsuccessful  siege  led  by  Prince 
Eugene  in  1707.  Toulon  is  in  southern  France  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean Sea,  a  little  southeast  from  Marseilles. 

295  :  28.  the  slight  .  .  .  upon  the  fiery  little  Abb6  of  Savoy. 
Prince   Eugene   (of  Savoy-Carignan)   was    born  at    Paris,  hia 


NOTES  665 

father  being  Count  of  Soissons  and  his  mother  a  niece  of  Cardi- 
nal Mazarin.  His  family  intended  him  for  the  Church,  and  at 
the  age  of  ten  he  was  given  the  title  Abb6  of  Carignan.  But 
his  military  instincts  asserted  themselves,  he  applied  to  Louis 
XIV  for  a  commission,  and  this  being  refused  he  entered  the 
Emperor  of  Austria's  army,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  as  colonel. 

295  :  34.  Sasbach,  a  village  in  the  Duchy  of  Baden,  Ger- 
many, where  Marshal  Turenne  met  his  death  in  a  skirmish, 
July  27,  1675. 

296  :  8.  Artois  and  Picardy,  provinces  of  France  before  the 
Revolution  of  1789,  immediatdy  west  and  south  of  French 
Flanders,  where  Lille  is  situated. 

297  :  19.  Tollemache  at  Brest.  Thomas  Tollemache  (1651- 
1694)  landed  with  King  William  at  Torbay  in  1688,  serving 
later  under  Marlborough,  Ginckel,  and  the  King.  He  was  in 
command  of  the  allied  troops  in  the  brave  but  foolish  expedi- 
tion against  Brest  in  1694,  where  he  lost  his  life.  There  is  no 
evidence  that  Marlborough  "betrayed  Tollemache  at  Brest." 
''Brest"  is  a  strongly  fortified  seaport  in  the  extreme  north- 
west of  France. 

297  :  31.  Marshal  Boufflers  (1644-1711),  a  duke  and 
marshal  of  France,  who  won  distinction  in  these  campaigns. 

298  :  11.  Helchin.  The  usual  atlases  do  not  give  this  spot, 
nor  1.  35,  Turout,  nor  300:  12,  Roncq. 

298  :  23.    Ostend,  the  seaport  of  Flanders  (Belgium). 

298  :  25.  waggons  is  the  spelling  in  England;  in  America, 
''wagons." 

300  -.21.    majority,  i.e.  rank  or  position  as  major. 

300  :  22.  Have  you  ever  a  hundred  guineas  to  give  Car- 
donnel  ?  i.e.  Adam  de  Cardonnel,  the  friend  and  secretary 
,of  the  Duke  of  Marlborough,  expelled  from  the  House  of  Com- 
mons in  1712  for  corruption. 

300  :  31.    Vaelt-Mareschal,  i.e.  field  marshal. 

302  :  12.  Order  of  Generosity.  A  Prussian  order,  founded 
In  1665,  though  not  organized  till  twenty  years  later,  and  later 


566  HENRY    ESMOND 

superseded  in  1740  and  substituted  by  the  "Order  for  Merit.'" 
Prussia  had  become  a  kingdom  in  1701. 

302  :  23.  Le  vainqueur,  etc.  The  conqueror  of  Wj^nendael; 
his  army  and  his  victor}^  which  make  us  dine  at  Lille  to-day. 

308  :  9.  If  Captain  Esmond  ...  I  declare.  A  change  of 
person,  yet  denoting  the  same  person. 

311  :  9.  The  foot-notes,  in  Thackeray's  best  satiric  A'ein,  are 
presumably  Rachel  Esmond  Warrington's,  the  editor  of  the 
Memoirs. 

311  :  25.  Nicolini  or  Mrs.  Tofts.  For  "Nicolini,"  see  256:3. 
Katherine  Tofts  (1680-1758),  "a  noted  English  singer.  Men- 
tion is  made  of  her  in  the  Tatler  and  by  contemporaries. 

311    :  26.     St.  Cecilia,  the  patron  saint  of  music. 

313  :  28.  Que  voulez-vouz,  etc.  What  will  you?  ...  I 
love  her. 

315  :  5.  a  certain  lady,  who  was  of  the  suite  of  .  .  .  mother 
who  was  .  .  .  and  who.  Thackeray  awkwardly  builds  two 
relative  clauses  on  top  of  a  relative  clause. 

316  :  3.    tour.    Cf.  the  slang  'Hurn-out,"  "get-up,"  etc. 

316  :  4.    a  ravir,  to  ravishment. 

317  :  26.     Vive  le  Roy  I   long  live  the  King! 

318  :  9.  distiwisht  officer  ithe  rex  roob,  i.e.  distinguished 
officer  in  the  next  room.  Thackeray  rather  overdoes  the  matter 
in  representing  Steele  always  in  this  plight. 

319  :  18.    rus  in  urbe,  country  life  combined  with  city  life. 
319  :  19.    Hampstead,    a    suburb,    about    four    and    a   half 

miles  west  of  St.  Paul's.  Montague  House  has  been  altered  into 
the  British  Museum  with  its  library  and  national  collections. 

319  :  26.  the  Tatler  .  .  .  49th  number  .  .  .  Aspasia.  The 
Tatler  was  started  in  1709.  The  lady  that  Steele  paid  the  noble 
tribute  to  in  the  49th  number,  in  a  phrase  that  still  lives,  "To 
love  her  is  a  liberal  education,"  was  the  Lady  Elizabeth 
Hastings. 

320  :  11.  Mr.  Bickerstaffe,  a  pen-name  used  by  Steele  in  the 
Tatler.     Cf .  321 :  32. 


NOTES  667 

320  :  39.    black.    Cf.  191 :  22. 

321  :  17.  Pope.  It  is  the  poet  Alexander  Pope,  as  the  author 
of  the  Epistles  and  the  Satires,  who  is  so  described. 

321  :  19.  has  wrote.  To  represent  an  archaic  form  of 
hmgiiage,  Thackeray  usually  uses  "  writ "  for  the  past;  here  he 
places  the  past  form  for  the  participle. 

321  :  32.  Such  stuff  about  Bickerstaffe,  and  Distaff,  and 
Quarterstaff.  In  the  opening  paper  of  the  Taller  series,  Steele, 
under  the  name  of  Isaac  Bickerstaff ,  humorously  tells  of  all  the 
other  "staffs"  or  "staves."  Thackeray  makes  Mrs.  Steele  a 
fool,  besides  making  her  husband  always  drunk. 

322  :  14.    a  Parthian  glance,  i.e.  a  killing  dart. 

322  :  22.  II  est  fatiguant,  etc.  He  is  fatiguing  —  with  his 
constant  talk  about  Wynandael. 

325  :  7.  Knightsbridge.  Formerly  an  old  bridge  across  the 
stream  Tyburn,  west  of  London.  Nowadays,  "  Knightsbridge" 
is  the  street  running  south  of  Hyde  Park. 

329  :  11.  no  suit  to  play  but  the  red  one.  A  word  play  on 
the  suit  of  a  game  at  cards  and  the  soldier's  profession  of  spill- 
ing blood,  as  well  as  on  the  red  coat  of  his  uniform. 

329  t  17.  a  yard  of  blue  ribbon,  the  badge  of  an  order  of 
merit,  won  by  a  brave  action. 

330  :  5.  Dulcinea,  the  lady  beloved  by  Don  Quixote  in 
Cervantes's  masterpiece.     Cf.  358:  7. 

330  :  34.  attended  the  early  church  daily,  i.e.  the  daily 
early  communion  service  of  the  English  Church. 

331  :  8.  trumps,  both  in  cards  and  symbolically  the  best 
of  everything. 

331  :  11.  director,  i.e.  spiritual  director,  priest  —  an  abb^. 
Cf.  1.  18. 

332  :  25.  Tierce  to  a  king,  the  three  spot  on  a  king  in  the 
game  of  "picquet"  (1.  23),  with  a  quibble  on  the  intrigues  for 
the  Stuart  king. 

334  :  6.  harriers,  small  hounds  with  keen  scent  used  in 
hunting  the  hare. 


568  HENRY   ESMOND 

334  :  16.  Corporal  John,  i.e.  the  Duke  of  Marlborough 
(John-Churchill). 

334  :  25.  Malplaquet,  in  France,  on  the  Belgian  border, 
the  scene  of  the  battle,  September  11,  1709,  which  the  English, 
Dutch,  and  Austrians  under  Marlborough  and  Prince  Eugene 
won  over  the  French  under  Marshal  Villars. 

335  :  9.    Hochstedt,  i.e.  Blenheim.     Cf.  262 :  4. 

335  :  29.  the  slight.  Cf.  295 :  28.  It  is  Thackeray's  habit 
to  repeat  in  this  way. 

335  :  32.  the  Holy  Roman  Emperor,  i.e.  the  Emperor  of 
Austria.  So  336:4-5,  "the  Holy  Roman  and  Apostolic  master 
of  these  ruffians,"  etc.     Cf.  248  :  13. 

335  :  38.  Croats  aad  Pandours.  The  "Croats"  are  strictly 
inhabitants  of  Croatia,  a  part  of  the  Austria-Hungarian 
empire,  southwest  of  Hungary.  The  term  is  here  used  fcr 
a  body  of  rough  and  fierce  troops  formerly  in  the  Austrian 
army  collected  from  Croatia,  Hungary,  and  near-lying  dis- 
tricts of  the  empire.  Pandours  has  the  same  general  meaning; 
cf .  277  :  20. 

336  :  35.    David  .  .  .  Uriah.    Cf.  II  Samuel  xi. 

337  :  18.  Mons,  the  capital  of  the  province  of  Hainault, 
Belgium,  the  scene  of  repeated  battles. 

338  :  3.     cabaret,  tavern. 

338  :  27.     dissolution,  i.e.  death. 

338  :  30.  Church  of  England  .  .  .  Roman  Communion.  It 
may  be  remembered  that  Thackeray  was  writing  after  the  wide- 
spread interest  aroused  in  theological  discussions  by  the  High 
Church  Movement  at  Oxford,  1833-1845,  under  Pusey,  Keble, 
Newman,  and  the  rest. 

338  :  36.  Augsburg,  in  southern  Bavaria.  The  reference  is 
to  the  creed  of  the  Lutheran  Church  prepared  by  Melanchthon 
for  the  Diet  of  Augsburg  in  1530. 

339  :  8.  Dr.  Sacheverel.  Henry  Sacheveroll  (1672-1724) 
was  Addison's  room-mate  at  Magdalen  College,  Oxford;  and 
was  preacher  at  St.  Saviour's,  South wark.     In  1709  he  preached 


NOTES  669 

two  sermons  criticising  the  Whig  ministry,  and  in  1710  was  sus- 
pended for  three  years. 

339  :  11.  Richard  Cromwell,  the  son  of  OUver  Cromwell, 
and  Protector  for  a  few  months,  1658-1659,  after  the  death  of 
his  father. 

339  :  18.  Herrenhausen,  near  Hanover,  in  Germany,  the 
seat  of  the  palace  of  the  Elector  (afterward  George  I). 

341  :  13.  the  Liffey,  and  not  the  Loire.  Streams  in  Ireland 
and  in  France  respectively.  The  soldier  was  an  Irishman, 
serving  in  the  French  army  in  the  Stuart  cause,  and  no  French- 
man. 

341  :  19.  Lillibullero.  Of.  94:  2.  Teague,  a  nickname  for 
an  Irishman. 

341  :  22.  Dieu  benisse  votre  honor,  i.e.  God  bless  your  honor. 
It  is  dialectal  French,  as  spoken  by  one  of  English  speech. 

341  :  30.    pas  lui,   .   .   .  I'autre,  not  he,   .   .   .  the  other. 

341  :  38.    11th  of  September,  i.e.  at  Malplaquet. 

342  :  20.  Mr.  Sterne.  Roger  Sterne,  the  father  of  Lawrence 
Sterne,  the  novelist,  w^as  an  officer  in  one  of  Marlborough's 
regiments,  and  so  Thackeray  introduces  him  into  his  novel. 
Cf .  395  :  30. 

343  :  28.  wild  otes.  Thackeray's  love  of  bad  spelling  to 
denote  idiosyncrasy  or  dialect  has  already  been  mentioned. 
Most  of  the  words  in  italics  are  purposely  misspelled,  just  as 
ahhey  for  ''abb^." 

344  :  2.  The  church  of  St.  Gudule,  in  connection  with  Father 
Holt,  has  already  figured  in  the  story. 

344  :  6.  ryno.  A  slang  phrase  for  "money,"  or  "w^here- 
withal." 

344  :  20.    Hostel  de  I'Aigle  Noire,  Inn  of  the  Black  Eagle. 

344  :  28.  the  Court  was  at  Windsor,  i.e.  Queen  Anne  was  at 
Windsor  Castle. 

352  :  12.    frogs  for  dinner,  a  slur  on  certain  French  dishes. 

352  :  22.  horrid  Irish  wretch,  i.e.  Mr.  Swift  of  1.  33.  So 
.1.  34-35,  "that  Teague  from  Dublin  "  —  the  nickname  for  an 


670  HENRY   ESMOND 

Irishman.     Jonathan   Swift,   author   of   Gulliver's   Travels,   is 
meant. 

353  :  30.  my  Francisco,  i.e.  Francis — using  the  exaggerated 
style  of  Itahan  opera. 

353  :  39.  Guiscard,  that  stabbed  Mr.  Harley.  All  the  texts 
examined,  including  the  Biographical  Edition,  print  "Harvy" 
or  ''Harvey";  but  surely  it  is  a  mistake  for  the  statesman 
"Harley."  Guiscard  was  a  French  refugee,  about  whom  there 
was  considerable  mystery.  Refused  an  audience  with  the 
Queen,  he  seems  from  his  letters  even  to  have  had  thought's  of 
taking  the  Queen's  life.  Arrested  by  order  of  the  Council  and 
brought  before  it  to  be  questioned,  he  stabbed  Harley,  who  was 
a  member  of  the  Council.  The  poet  Prior  addressed  a  poem 
"To  Mr.  Harley"  on  the  subject. 

354  :  18.    moue,  face. 

355  :  19.  Queen  Bess  .  .  .  Queen  Mary.  An  allusion  to 
the  rivalry,  political  and  personal,  between  Queen  Elizabeth 
of  England  and  Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of  Scots. 

356  :  24.  a  tulip,  a  flower  cultivated  by  the  people  of 
Holland  in  great  perfection  and  in  many  varieties. 

357  :  1.  Mr.  St.  John  seems  rather  lugged  in,  a  circumstance 
not  altogether  explained  by  the  parenthesis  below. 

357  :  4.  Lais,  a  typical  name  taken  from  two  Greek  women 
famed  for  their  beauty  who  lived  in  Corinth  in  the  fifth  and 
fourth  centuries  b.c,  respectively. 

357  :  27.  Diogenes  .  .  .  Alexander.  An  allusion  to  the  well- 
known  visit  of  Alexander  the  Great  (356-323  b.c),  King  of 
Macedon,  to  Diogenes  the  Cynic  (412-323  b.c),  at  Corinth. 
Darius  (1.  29),  i.e.  Darius  III,  the  King  of  Persia,  overcome  by 
Alexander  in  330  b.c  (as  sung  in  Drj^den's  Ode  on  Alexander's 
Feast).  Bucephalus  (1,  29),  the  horse  tamed  by  Alexander  foi 
his  use,  and  which  no  one  else  was  able  to  ride. 

358  :  7.  Dulcinea  del  Toboso  ...  go  and  attack  windmills. 
Another  reference  to  Don  Quixote's  "peerless  beauty"  (cf. 
330:  5),  and  his  adventure  with  the  windmill. 


NOTES  571 

358  :  15.    try  an  alibi,  i.e.  go  elsewhere,  go  away. 

359  :  20.  You  and  mamma  are  fit  for  each  other.  Thack- 
eray again  suggests  the  sequel,  as  in  11.  32-33,  ''  Shall  I  .  .  . 
perhaps  marry  Tom  Tusher?" 

359  :  21.  Darby  and  Joan,  a  traditional  married  pair,  noted 
for  their  long  life  and  happiness. 

359:33.    Mercil     Thank  you! 

360  :  22.  a  monkey  .  .  .  black  boy  ...  a  parrot  and  a 
spaniel.  The  pictures  of  the  time  show  all  these  objects  in  the 
typical  lady's  retinue. 

360  :  25.  Cupid.  The  little  negro,  Pompey,  is  so  called  for 
the  very  reason  that  he  does  not  resemble  Cupid. 

360  :  27.  Lord  Peterborow.  Charles  Mordaunt  (1658- 
1735),  Earl  of  Peterborough  and  Monmouth,  a  noted  military 
character  of  the  period.  Lord  Peterborough  had  marked  pe- 
culiarities of  character,  but  was  a  great  favorite  with  the  circle 
of  literary  m^n  of  the  time.  Swift,  Pope,  Gay,  etc. 

361  :  21.  escrutoire,  i.e.  escritoire,  writing  desk.  It  is 
sometimes  spelled  "scrutoire." 

361  :  22.  a  Comedy,  after  the  literary  fashion  of  the  day, 
just  as  Thackeray  has  Esmond  imitate  a  number  of  the  Spectator. 

361  :  32.  Mr.  Dennis.  John  Dennis  (1657-1734),  an  Eng- 
lish critic  of  the  day,  who  incurred  the  dislike  of  Pope  and  was 
ridiculed  in  the  Dunciad. 

362  :  27.  Horace.  The  quotation  is  from  the  Satires,  1, 1 ,  69-70. 
362  :  28.    Creech.     Thomas  Creech  (1659-1700),  an  English 

translator  of  Lucretius  (1682)  and  other  Latin  works. 

362  :  29.  Jocasta,  a  lady  of  fashion.  The  name  is  derived 
from  the  (Edipus  legend  and  play  of  that  name  by  Sophocles 
(495-406  B.C.).     Hence  the  signature,  "(Edipus"  (365:  29). 

362  :  33.  Tunbridge  or  the  Bath,  fashionable  resorts  in  the 
eighteenth  century.  "Tunbridge  Wells"  is  in  Kent  near  the 
border  of  Sussex  (cf.  "Wells"  and  "Sussex, "  11.  35-6).  Bath,  a 
town  in  Somersetshire  (cf.  "Somerset,"  1.  36),  is  noted  for  its 
mineral  springs. 


572  HENRY   ESMOND 

363  :  5.    Epsom  Wells,  another  health  and  fashionable  re 
sort  in   Surrey,  about  fifteen  miles  southwest  from  London 

363  :  10.     Spring  Garden.     Cf .  130 :  3. 

363  :  21.  a  blue  ribbon.  Cf.  329:  17.  So  378:  7,  the  Duke 
of  Hamilton's  "star  and  green  ribbon." 

363  :  21.  wears  his  own  hair,  and  not  a  wig  or  perruque,  as 
was  the  fashion. 

363  :  25.  Saint  James's  Church.  It  was  situated  in  the 
fashionable  quarter,  near  Pall  Mall.     Cf.  260:  19. 

364  :  15.  Philander,  a  typical  name  for  a  lover,  derived  from 
the  old  pastorals  and  romances.  So,  11.  15-16,  Camilla  .  .  . 
Thalestris  are  adapted  to  the  purposes  of  this  narrative.  Both 
names  are  found  in  Pope's  Ra'pe  of  the  Lock. 

364  :  37.  Bethesdas.  The  figure  is  taken  from  John  v.  2-4. 
Cf.  1.  32  above,  and  367:  11. 

365  :  3.  goold  .  .  .  chayney  are  dialectal  pronunciations; 
Candish  .  .  .  Chumley  are  the  popular  pronunciations  of  these 
names. 

367  :  24.  hupsilon,  i.e.  upsilon,  the  Greek  u,  represented  by 
the  English  y. 

369  :  1.  Circe  .  .  .  Ulysses.  Circe  was  the  enchantress  who 
made  Ulysses  on  his  wanderings  remain  a  year  with  her.  So, 
1.  15,  Penelope,  the  wife  of  Ulysses,  besieged  by  suitors  in  his 
absence. 

369  :  12.    r6der,  prowl,  ramble. 

370  :  21.  portrait  ...  in  the  Hampton  Court  Gallery,  a 
reference  to  a  series  of  portraits  of  the  beauties  of  Charles  I's 
time  by  Sir  Peter  Lcly. 

372  :  21.  the  other  author  .  .  .  inimitable.  Thackeray's 
high  praise  of  Addison. 

372  :  33.  Lindamiras  .  .  .  Nelly  and  Betty.  "IJndamira" 
is  another  "romantic"  name  (cf.  364:  15),  and  Thackeray  sug- 
gests the  principles  of  the  realism  of  the  nineteenth  century  in 
"Nelly  and  Betty."  The  same  contrast  between  the  romantic 
and  a  sense  of  the  realistic  and  the  materialistic  is  repeated., 


NOTES  573 

367:    1-2,   in   "Lubin  ...  a    dismal  shepherd   .    .    .   and  a 

nymph." 

374  :  36.    on  a  beau  dire,  one  has  to  speak  nicely. 

375  :  20.  pied  a  terre,  sojourn  or  stopping-place  in  a 
journey. 

376  :  9.  For  mamma?  Beatrix  mischievously  changes  the 
Biblical  reference  to  Rachel  to  a  reference  to  her  mother.  Beatrix 
has  divined  that  her  mother  and  Esmond  are  unconsciously  in 
love  with  each  other.     Cf .  383 :  28-30. 

377  :  14.    Mohock,  i.e.  Indian,  Mohawk. 

377  :  29.    Mon  ami,  my  friend. 

378  :  33.  Duke  of  Hamilton,  then  Earl  of  Arran.  It  was  the 
second  Lord  Hamilton,  James  Hamilton,  who  was  created  first 
Earl  of  Arran  by  the  Scotch  King,  James  IV,  in  1503.  Thack- 
eray follows  history  closely  in  telling  of  the  achievements  and 
position  of  this  lord. 

379  :  27.  Loo,  the  house  of  William  of  Orange  in  the  wood 
at  the  Hague,.  Holland.  Cf.  Macaulay's  History,  Vol.  II, 
Chapter  VII. 

380  :  6.    Staffordshire,  a  county  in  northern  central  England. 
380  :  7.     When  the  Whigs  went  out  of  office  in  1710.      At 

the  general  election  in  1710,  the  people,  excited  by  the  Sach- 
everell  trial  and  condemnation,  and  wearied  with  the  war,  re- 
turned a  Tory  majority,  whereupon  Godolphin  and  Marlborough 
were  promptly  dismissed  from  office,  and  a  Tory  ministry 
formed  under  Harley  (Lord  Oxford)  and  St.  John  (Lord  Boling- 
broke). 

380  :  10.  the  Thistle  ...  the  Garter,  the  ancient  Scottish 
order  and  the  highest  English  order. 

380  :  19.    At  the  Chapter,  i.e.  meeting  of  the  order.. 

380  :  21.  Lord  Treasurer,  the  new-created  Earl  of  Oxford 
and  Mortimer,  i.e.  Robert  Harley,  the  new  Premier.  Cf .  390 : 
4-5. 

380  :  30.  married  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Digby,  Lord  Ger- 
ard.    This  is  historical,    Cf .  Thackeray's  misstatement,  408 :  1 1. 


574  HENRY    ESMOND 

381  :  4.  in  the  opera-machine,  the  machinery  as  seen  bj 
those  behind  the  scenes  on  the  theatre-stage. 

381  :  31.  Fulham,  a  London  suburb,  lying  to  the  south- 
west, on  the  upper  bank  of  the  Thames. 

383  :  10.  the  play  .  .  .  Desdemona  .  .  .  Othello.  The 
reference,  of  course,  is  to  Shakespeare's  play  of  Othello. 

383  :  15.    routs,  large  and  crowded  entertainments. 

383  :  24.  Madame  I'Ambassadrice  d'Ang^eterre,  Her  Excel- 
lenc}'',  the  Ambassadress  of  England. 

383  :  27.    O  carol    O  bravo  1    splendid!    good! 

383  :  28.  Your  Shakespeares  and  Miltons  and  stu*^.  A 
paraphrase  from  Goldsmith's  description  of  Sir  Joshua  rCey- 
nolds,  the  painter,  in  Retaliation:  — 

"When  they  talked  of  their  Raphaels,  Correggios,  and  stuff, 
He  shifted  his  trumpet,  and  only  took  snuff." 

383  :  35.  the  pretty  "Gawrie,"  whom  the  man  in  the  story 
was  enamoured  of.  The  story  is  The  Life  and  Adventures  of  Peter 
Wilkins,  "relating  oarticularly  his  Shipwreck  near  the  South 
Pole;  his  wonderful  passage  through  a  subterranean  Cavern 
into  a  kind  of  New  World,-^  his  there  meeting  with  a  Gawrey,  or 
Flying  Woman,  whose  life  he  preserved,  and  afterwards  married 
her'';  etc.  The  allusion  to  "your  Peter  Wilkins"  (1.  37)  in 
Esmond's  reply  is  thus  evident,  however  great  the  anachronism 
in  permitting  Beatrix  and  Esmond  to  discuss  a  book  that  ap- 
peared much  later.  The  work  was  published  anonymously  by 
Dodsley  in  1750,  and  is  thought  to  be  by  Robert  Paltock,  or 
Pultock,  "of  Clement's  Inn,  Gentleman." 

384  :  38.    engaged  with,  i.e.  became  engaged  to. 

385  :  18.    the  black  man,  i.e.  Othello.     Cf.  383 :  10. 

386  :  3.  Belinda's  cross  is  in  Mr.  Pope's  admirable  poem. 
Belinda  is  the  heroine  in  Pope's  mock-heroic  poem,  The  Rape 
of  the  Lock  (1712). 

387  :  4.    chuse,  an  older  spelling  for  "chooee." 

389  :  1.  James  Douglas,  the  personal  name  of  the  Duke  of 
Hamilton.     Cf.  378:  33. 


I 


NOTES  575 

390  :  33.  Lord  Bridgewater.  Scroop  Egerton,  Earl  of 
Bridgewater,  was  married  to  Elizabeth,  daughter  of  Lord 
Marlborough,  in  1703. 

391  :  4.  The  Prince  of  Savoy  came  amongst  us.  Upon  the 
fall  of  Marlborough,  Prince  Eugene  hastened  to  England  to 
prevent  her  from  withdrawing  from  the  alliance  with  the  Austrian 
Emperor.  That  country  gratefully  presented  him  with  a 
sword. 

391  :  11.  our  defeat  at  Denain.  The  French  Marshal  Villars 
defeated  the  Allied  Troops  under  Prince  Eugene,  July  24,  1712, 
at  Denain,  a  town  in  northern  France,  seven  miles  southwest 
from  Valenciennes. 

392  :  33.  the  North  American  colonies,  etc.  ...  I  never 
can  think.  As  before,  the  parenthesis  is  a  means  whereby  the 
illusion  of  the  Memoirs  is  kept  up.  There  is  the  pretence  of 
foretelling  an  event  which  really  happened  seventy-five  years 
before.  Cf.  393:  32-4.  The  rest  of  the  long  paragraph  is 
Thackeray's  usual  moralizing,  disguised  behind  Esmond. 

392  :  39.  the  October  Club,  a  club  of  extreme  Tories,  formed 
after  the  Revolution  of  1688. 

393  :  15.  Zell  or  the  Hague.  "Zell,"  i.e.  Zelle,  or  Celle,  a 
town  in  the  province  of  Hanover,  Germany,  one  of  the  residences 
of  the  Hanoverian  Elector,  later  George  I.  Cf.  (1.  26),  "a  petty 
German  town."  ''The  Hague,"  the  capital  city  of  Holland, 
the  country  of  William  of  Orange.     Cf.  Loo,  379 :  27. 

393  :  22.  Charles  Stuart's  head,  i.e.  Charles  I,  who  was  be- 
headed by  Parliament  in  1649. 

393  :  24.  grandmother's  head,  i.e.  Mary  Stuart,  Queen  of 
Scots,  who  was  beheaded  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  (Queen  Bess's, 
1.  25)  reign  in  1587. 

393  :  28.  Dutch,  i.e.  German,  from  Germany.  Cf.  Ger- 
man two  lines  above. 

393  :  37.  King  Canute  or  the  Druids.  "King  Canute"  was 
one  of  the  Danish  kings  of  England  in  eleventh  century,  1014- 
1035.     The  reference  is  simply  to  something  very  ancient  and 


676  HENRY    ESMOND 

remote  from  all  personal  interest.  So  with  "the  Druids,"  the 
ancient  priests  of  the  early  Celtic  inhabitants  of  Great 
Britain. 

394  :  2.  Doctors  Garth  and  Arbuthnot  and  Mr.  Gay.  Sir 
Samuel  Garth  (1661-1719),  physician  and  poet,  author  of  the 
mock-epic  The  Dispensary,  ridiculing  the  opposition  of  apothe- 
caries to  a  dispensary  for  the  poor.  John  Arbuthnot  (1667- 
1735),  physician  and  political  writer,  principal  author  of  the 
Memoirs  of  Martinus  Scriblerus  (1714)  of  the  Scriblerus  Club, 
containing  all  the  literary  wits  of  the  day.  He  is  represented  in 
the  closing  chapters  of  our  story  as  the  physician  attendant 
upon  Queen  Anne's  last  illness  and  in  sympathy  with  the 
Jacobite  plans  to  restore  the  Pretender.  John  Gay  (1685-1732), 
poet.  His  mock-heroic  poem,  Trivia,  or  the  Art  of  Walking  the 
Streets  of  London,  appeared  in  1716. 

394  :  8.  Duke  of  Shrewsbury,  Charles  Talbot  (1660-1718). 
twelfth  Earl  of  Shrewsbury  and  first  Duke.  He  joined  with 
those  who  invited  the  Prince  of  Orange  to  England  after  the 
Revolution  in  1688,  held  high  offices  under  both  William  and 
Anne,  and  secured  the  succession  to  George  I  by  proclaiming 
him  King. 

394  :  10.  not  having  the  courage  to  support  the  dignity 
which  his  undeniable  genius  had  won  him.  Cf.  257  :  33.  Matthew 
Prior,  in  her  Majesty's  service  and  writer  of  society  verse,  had 
been  appointed  in  1711  Minister  Plenipotentiary  in  France. 

394  :  17.  The  great  Mr.  Pope.  Thackeray  was  thinking  of 
Pope's  career  as  a  whole.  Pope  was  only  twenty-four  year.«? 
old  in  1712.  Thackeray's  admiration  of  Pope,  even  to  condon- 
ing his  faults,  also  appears  in  the  Lectures  on  the  English  Hu- 
mourists. 

394  :  22.  nunc  perscribere  longum  est,  it  is  tedious  to  name 
all  now. 

394  :  25.  Harry  Fielding.  Cf.  2  :  16.  The  novelist's  father, 
Edmund  Fielding,  was  in  the  army  and  rose  to  be  a  general 
(cf.  II.  25-6). 


NOTES  677 

394  :  28.  Vidi  tantum,  I  have  as  much  as  seen  him.  A 
favorite  expression  of  Thackeray's  and  used  in  his  letters. 
Thackeray  is  as  severe  on  Swift  in  his  judgment  in  The  English 
Humourists  as  he  is  favorable  to  Pope. 

394  :  32.  I  .  .  .  your  grandfather.  The  illusion  of  the 
Memoirs,  with  a  change  from  first  person  to  third.  And  so  in 
what  follows.  Cf.  396  :  9,  "O  my  grandson!"  etc.  So  396: 
19-21,  "Mine  ...  on  the  banks  of  the  Thames  .  .  .  thine 
own  by  Rappahannoc." 

395  :  1.  'Tis  said  he  hath  lost  his  intellect  now.  The  last 
years  of  Swift's  life  were  mentally  clouded. 

395  :  6.  a  lonely  fallen  Prometheus,  i.e.  when  in  the  power 
of  Zeus,  at  whose  order  he  is  chained  to  the  mountain  cliflf  and 
vultures  consume  his  liver. 

395  :  9.  the  Poultry,  at  the  east  end  of  Cheapside  (cf .  185 : 
1)  before  it  divides  into  three,  Lombard  Street,  Cornhill,  and 
Threadneedle  Street,  a  tipsy  Irish  servant,  brought  by  the 
Doctor  from  his  home  in  Dublin. 

395  :  12.  haggling  with  the  chairman,  i.e.  over  the  fee 
for  being  carried  in  the  chair  to  his  destination.  Cf.  158: 
39. 

395  :  30.  poor  Roger's,  i.e.  Roger  Sterne;  for  the  story  is 
virtually  so  told,  of  the  parents  of  the  author  of  Tristram 
Shandy  and  A  Sentimental  Journey,  in  the  Memoirs  of  the  Life 
and  Family  of  the  late  Rev.  Lawrence  Sterne,  written  by  himself. 
Cf.  342  :  20. 

396  :  4.    took  the  shilling,  i.e.  enlisted  in  the  army. 

396  :  12.  the  Hebrew  poet's  limit,  i.e.  threescore  years  and 
cen;    cf.  Psalms  xc.  10. 

396  :  19.  Omphale  and  Dalilah,  the  women  who  won  the 
hearts  and  moved  to  their  wills  the  Greek  Hercules  and  the 
Hebrew  Samson  respectively. 

396  :  34.  ...  Eat.  .  .  .  Kill  I  References  respectively  to 
the  story  of  Adam  and  Eve,  and  to  Macbeth  and  Lad}^  Macbeth 
(in  Shakespeare's  play),  who  murder  Duncan  the  King. 


578  HENRY    ESMOND 

397  :  2.  Wills's  Coffee-house,  on  the  corner  of  Bow  and 
Russell  streets,  a  great  resort  of  wits  and  writers  since  Dryden's 
time,  with  whose  fame  it  is  chiefly  associated.  It  was  so  called 
from  the  name  of  its  proprietor.  Will  Urwin. 

397  :  33.  voice  that  had  an  Irish  twang.  It  may  be  that 
Swift  had  such  an  enunciation;  but  as  he  always  considered 
himself  an  Englishman,  it  may  be  doubted.  In  398  :  22 
Thackeray  instances  naught  for  "not." 

397  :  38.  he  pulled  out  ...  at  which  he  looks.  A  change 
of  tense. 

398  :  25.  Doctor  Faustus,  who  summoned  the  devil  to  aid 
him  in  his  desires,  the  subject  of  a  play  by  Marlowe  (1564- 
1593).  Friar  Bacon,  a  similar  character,  the  subject  of  a  play 
by  Robert  Greene  (1560-1593). 

398  :  32.  Grub  Street  scribblers.  Grub  Street  in  St.  Giles 
parish,  Cripplegate,  London,  now  Milton  Street,  was  formerly 
the  abode  of  many  minor  writers. 

398  :  37.    the  Compter,  the  prison. 

399  :  15.  lodgings  in  Bury  Street,  in  the  neighborhood  of 
St.  James's  and  Pall  Mall. 

400  :  18.  his  Grace  of  Ormonde  ...  as  generalissimo. 
The  Duke  of  Ormonde  succeeded  Marlborough  in  1712  in  com- 
mand of  the  army  in  Flanders. 

401  :  16.  Mohawks.  The  original  spelling,  but  usually 
"Mohocks."     Cf.  377:14. 

401  :  19.     Macartney  and  Meredith.    Cf.  note  on  156  :  26. 

402  :  4.  Archbishoprick.  Swift's  ambition  to  obtain  a 
bishopric  was  doomed  to  disappointment.  Queen  Anne  made 
him  dean  of  St.  Patrick's  Cathedral,  Dublin,  in  1713,  and  with 
that  he  had  to  be  content. 

402  :  13.  la  bonne  cause,  etc.,  the  good  cause  will  triumph. 
The  health  of  the  good  cause!  i.e.  of  the  Stuart  Pre- 
tender. 

402  :  21.  The  Hind  and  the  Panther.  The  expression  is 
taken  from  the  poet  Dryden's  satirical  allegory  on  the  churches 


I 


NOTES  579 

in  1687,  the  Hind  being  the  Church  of  Rome  and  the  Panther 
the  Church  of  England. 

402  :  23.  Righteousness  and  peace  shall  kiss  each  other. 
Cf.  Psahns  Ixxxv.  10. 

402  :  24.  cheek  by  jowl,  i.e.  side  by  side,  face  with  face. 
From  Shakespeare's  Midsummer  Night's  Dream,  III,  2,  338. 
Father  Massillon  .  .  .  with  Dr.  Sacheverel,  i.e.  the  Roman 
Cathohc  divine  with  the  Anglo-Cathohc  or  High  Churchman. 

402  :  39.  His  uncle  did,  i.e.  James  Fitzroy,  created  Duke 
of  Monmouth,  a  natural  son  of  Charles  I. 

403  :  1,  what  happened  to  his  grandfather?  i.e.  to  Charles 
I,  who  was  beheaded. 

403  :  5.  Our  great  King  came  from  Hungtingdon,  i.e. 
Oliver  Cromwell,  who  was  born  in  Huntingdon,  in  middle 
England.  It  is  the  innate  pride  of  an  Englishman  that  praises 
the  achievements  of  the  great  Englishman.  Cf.  11.  11-12,  "Are 
all  Oliver's  men  dead?" 

403  :  6.  Dutchman,  i.e.  German,  George  I,  who  came  from 
Hanover.  Earlier  it  was  correctly  used  with  reference  to 
William  III,  who  came  from  Holland. 

403  :  7.  Whitehall,  i.e.  the  royal  palace  of  the  first  Stuart 
King,  James  I. 

403  :  29.  Duke  of  Hamilton  .  .  .  murdered  ...  by  Mohun 
and  Macartney.  Dramatically  enough,  Thackeray  has  the  same 
men  who  were  the  cause  of  Beatrix's  father's  death  the  mur- 
derers of  her  intended  husband.  This  duel  with  its  outcome  is 
historical.  The  other  duel  with  Viscount  Castlewood,  engaged 
in  by  Mohun  and  Macartney,  is  added  for  purposes  of  fiction. 
Cf.  note  on  156:  26.  The  Duke  of  Hamilton  and  Lord  Mohun 
were  married  to  nieces  of  Charles  Gerard,  Earl  of  Macclesfield 
(they  were  not  sisters,  as  stated  408  :  11),  and  the  duel  grew 
out  of  words  exchanged  in  a  lawsuit  relative  to  the  property. 
That  historically  Lord  Hamilton  was  a  married  man  at  the 
time  of  his  death  could  easily  be  pardoned  our  novelist, 
who,  for  purposes  of  fiction,  makes  him  the  suitor  of  Beatrix. 


580  HENRY    ESMOND 

403  :  33.  Hyde  Park,  the  largest  of  the  London  parks,  ex* 
tending  from  Westminster  to  Kensington. 

404  :  15.  Who,  in  the  course  of  his  life,  etc.  Another  of 
Thackeray's  characteristic  moralizings,  under  the  guise  of 
Esmond's  thoughts,  in  which  he  grows  spontaneously  eloquent. 
Then  follows  the  description,  405 :  8-38,  of  the  preparations  for 
the  wedding.  They  are  the  utterances  of  Thackeray  the  preacher 
the  author  of  Vanity  Fair  on  the  old  text  of  vanitas  vanita- 
tum,  softened  and  touched  by  time  and  experience. 

405  :  18.  King  James  the  Third,  i.e.  the  Stuart  Pretender, 
brother  of  Queen  Anne,  who  claimed  the  throne. 

405  :  19.  ermine.  The  fur  of  the  ermine  was  used  for 
lining  official  robes  of  those  high  in  state. 

405  :  24.  Exeter  Change,  a  business  centre  "in  the  Strand, 
where  all  attire  for  ladies  and  gentlemen  was  sold" — quoted 
from  Thackeray's  note-book. 

405  :  25.  chased  salver,  i.e.  a  large  gold  or  silver  dish, 
ornamented  or  decorated.  The  ornamentation  represented 
the  well-known  subject  of  Mars,  the  god  of  war,  enthralled  by 
Venus,  the  goddess  of  love,  while  little  Cupids  are  playing  with 
the  war  god's  armor.     Cf.  11.  28-33. 

405  :  37.  Viscount  Squanderfield.  One  of  Thackeray's  char- 
acteristic names  invented  to  suggest  the  nature  of  the  person. 

406  :  14.  Herodias  ...  in  the  charger,  i.e.  the  price  of 
blood  of  a  good  man's  death.     Cf.  Mark  vi.  22-28. 

407  :  9.  No,  thank  Heaven,  etc.  The  moral  lesson  is 
Thackeray's  rather  than  Esmond's.  Surely  Esmond  would 
have  been  tenderer. 

408  :  11.  whose  two  daughters  my  Lord  Duke  and  Mohun 
had  married.  They  were  not  sisters,  though  they  were  kinsfolk. 
Lord  Hamilton  was  married  to  "Elizabeth,  daughter  of 
Digby,  Lord  Gerard"  (cf.  380  :  30),  while  Mohun's  first  wife 
was  Charlotte  Mainwaring,  a  niece  of  Charles  Gerard,  the  Earl 
of  Macciesfield.  The  Earl  had  left  Mohun  sole  heir  to  an  enor- 
mous estate,  for  a  share  in  which  Lord  Hamilton  instituted  suit. 


NOTES  581 

411  :  19.  the  Whigs  had.  It  would  be  hard  to  parse  the 
long  sentence  containing  these  words,  which  escaped  Thackeray's 
revision.  It  would  be  better  to  omit  the  three  words  altogether, 
and  reduce  the  semicolon  after  "duty,"  1.  23,  to  a  comma, 
when  a  tolerable  sense  is  obtained. 

411  :  24.  the  young  Duke  of  Cambridge,  i.e.  the  son  of  the 
Elector  of  Hanover,  later  George  II.     Cf.  449,:  5. 

412  :  31.  a  scheme  of  his  own.  It  need  hardly  be  said  that, 
Esmond  being  a  fictitious  person,  the  following  pages  and  chap- 
ters dealing  with  Esmond's  scheme,  the  bringing  of  James  to 
England,  his  stay  in  the  Castlewood  home,  his  affair  with 
Beatrix,  his  presence  in  England  but  not  in  London  at  the 
psychological  moment  of  the  Queen's  death,  are  all  fictitious 
and  matters  of  Thackeray's  invention  for  purposes  of  the 
story. 

Andrew  Lang,  in  his  Lije  of  Sir  Walter  Scott  (1906),  declares 
that  "The  plot  of  Woodstock  was  unconsciously  annexed 
by  Thackeray  in  Esmond.  His  charming  but  historically  ab- 
surd James  III  is  Charles  II,  laughing  and  running  after  every 
girl,  and  making  love  to  the  sister  and  mistress  of  the  two  good 
Royalists  who  protect  him.  Lockwood  and  his  sweetheart, 
in  Esmond,  are  Jocelyn  and  his  sweetheart  in  Woodstock, 
James  III  is  a  more  favored  lover  than  his  uncle,  and  Beatrix 
outshines  all  the  women  of  Scott,  but  Scott's  is  the  invention  cf 
the  situation,  down  to  the  King's  offer  of  a  duel."  The  editor 
is  indebted  to  Professors  Matthews  and  Trent  of  Columbia 
University  for  calling  attention  to  this  quotation. 

413  :  32.     St.  Philip  of  Castlewood.    Cf.  29  :  16. 

413  :  35.  The  long-debated  peace,  i.e.  the  Peace  of  Utrecht 
in  1713,  putting  an  end  to  the  War  of  the  Spanish  Succession. 
Cf.  205  :  36. 

414  :  23.    tolling,  i.e.  striking  the  hours. 

415  :  29-31.  Charnock.  Robert  Charnock  (1663-1696), 
vice-president  of  Magdalen  College,  Oxford,  but  expelled  from 
the  position,  became  the  leader  in  the  plot  against  William  III 


582  HENRY   ESMOND 

in  February,  1696,  was  imprisoned  and  hanged,  drawn  and 
quartered,  at  Tyburn,  March  18,  1696. 

Perkins.  Sir  WiUiam  Parkyns  or  Perkins  (1649-1696)  pro- 
vided horses  and  arms  for  about  forty  in  the  Jacobite  cause  in 
1696,  was  arrested,  tried,  and  executed,  together  witn  Sir  John 
Friend,  on  Tower  Hill,  April  13,  1696. 

Sir  John  Fenwick.    Cf.  52  :  14. 

Sir  John  Friend  had  been  knighted  by  James  II  in  1685,  and 
remained  faithful  to  him.  He  refused  to  take  part  in  the  con- 
spiracy against  William  Ill's  life,  but,  knowing  of  the  plots, 
was  arrested,  refused  counsel,  and  condemned  to  death.  His 
remains  were  set  up  at  Temple  Bar,  "a  dismal  sight,  which 
many  pitied,"  wrote  Evelyn  in  his  Diary  (iii,  128). 

Rookwood,  Ambrose  Rookwood  (1664-1696)  was  an 
officer  in  the  army  of  James  II,  and  remained  his  adherent  after 
the  Revolution.  Accused  of  complicity  in  the  plot  against 
William  Ill's  life,  he  was  convicted  and  executed  at  Tyburn, 
April  26,  1696. 

Lodwick,  associated  with  the  conspiracy  in  favor  of  the 
Restoration  of  James  II.  His  name  is  not  in  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography. 

Montgomery.  Sir  James  Montgomery,  tenth  Baron  of 
Skolmorlie,  Scotland,  who  entered  into  the  "Montgomery  Plot" 
for  the  restoration  of  James  II.  He  died  at  St.  Germains  in 
attendance  upon  the  Stuart  King  in  1694. 

Ailesbury.  Thomas  Bruce,  second  Earl  of  Ailesbury  (1655- 
1741),  accompanied  James  II  to  Rochester  in  his  final  flight; 
he  never  took  the  oaths  to  William  and  Mary,  and  was  committed 
to  the  Tower  in  1695  for  complicity  in  the  plot  to  restore  James  II. 

Clarendon.  Henry  Hyde  (1638-1709),  second  Lord  Claren- 
don, eldest  son  of  the  historian,  Edward  Hyde,  first  Earl  of 
Clarendon.  Accused  of  plotting  on  behalf  of  James  II,  he  was 
twice  committed  to  the  Tower,  but  ultimately  released,  after 
which  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life  ciuiotly  in  the  country. 

Yarmouth.    William    Paston    (1652-1732),   second    Earl   of 


NOTES  583 

Yarmouth,  was  married  to  a  natural  daughter  of  Charles  II, 
and  was  a  supporter  of  the  claims  of  James  II. 

417  :  10.    sable,  a  rich  black  material. 

417  :  30.  great  shovel-hat,  a  broad-brimmed  hat,  turned 
up  at  the  sides  and  projecting  in  front.     Cf .  22  :  20. 

417  :  34.  would  not  partake  of  pudding,  as  an  expression  of 
his  deference  and  humility. 

417  :  35.  perversion,  i.e.  change  of  adherence  in  becoming 
a  Roman  Catholic. 

418  ;  20.  shagreen,  i.e.  of  untanned  leather  with  a  rough 
surface. 

418  :  37.    preux  chevalier,  gallant  knight. 

419  :  24.  To  Lorraine,  i.e.  where  James  Stuart,  the  Pretender, 
was.     Cf.  522  :  38,  ''Bar,  in  Lorraine." 

421  :  5.  rid,  an  old  past  tense  form,  "rode"  coming  from 
the  singular,  "rid"  from  the  plural  form  of  the  old  preterite. 

421  :  20.  Hampshire,  the  southernmost  county  of  England, 
noted  for  the  mildness  of  its  climate. 

421  :  26.  Benedick,  the  married  man.  Cf.  Shakespeare's 
Much  Ado  about   Nothing,  I,  1,  269-270. 

421  :  30.    Monsieur  Simon,  Esmond's  disguise. 

422  :  27.    Prince  of  Wales,  i.e.  the  Pretender. 

423  :  1.  Malines,  elsewhere  called  Mecheln.  Cf.  269  :  28. 
In  1.  2,  correspondent,  i.e.  agent  or  representative. 

423  :  5.  Atridae,  the  sons  of  Atreus,  i.e.  Agamemnon,  King 
of  Mycenae,  and  Menelaus,  King  of  Sparta. 

423  :  18.  ratafia,  a  sweet  cordial  with  fruit  flavors,  popular 
in  Queen  Anne's  time  and  sometimes  spelled  "ratafee." 

424  :  8.  from  Nancy  to  Paris,  the  direct  route  from  Lorraine 
westward. 

424  :  35.    the  Queen,  i.e.  the  widow  of  James  II. 

425  :  18.  the  old  King,  Louis  XIV,  now  seventy-five  years 
old. 

425  :  20.  was  got,  an  older  construction,  purposely  used  for 
its  archaism. 


584  HENRY    ESMOND 

426  :  6,     Bishop  Atterbury,  Mr.  Lesly,  good    old  Mr.  Collier, 

i.e.  all  these  were  cognizant  oi  the  plot  to  restore  the  Pretender. 
Francis  Atterbury,  from  a  simple  clergyman  in  Part  I,  and 
a  dean  in  Part  II,  is  now  become  a  bishop  in  Part  III,  as  he 
was  in  actual  life.  Mr.  Lesly  is  Charles  Leslie,  or  Lesley  (1650- 
1722),  a  noted  Jacobite  controversialist.  There  is  an  ana- 
chronism in  the  date,  however,  as  Leslie  had  to  leave  England  in 
1711,  three  years  before,  on  accomit  of  his  political  activity, 
going  to  France  and  joining  the  household  of  the  Pretender. 
Mr.  Collier  is  Jeremy  Collier;    cf.  278  :  32. 

427  :  2.  the  Colonel  ...  a  practitioner  of  painting,  rather 
lugged  in  by  the  author  unnecessarily  to  explain  a  detail  of  his 
plot. 

428  :  4.     Mr.  Prior's  messenger  from  Paris.    Cf.  394  :  10. 

429  :  2.  a  play  of  Mons.  Racine  at  St.  Cyr.  St.  Cyr  is  a 
village  two  miles  and  a  half  west  of  Versailles,  where  at  the  time 
of  our  story  Mme.  de  Maintenon  had  a  convent  school  for  young 
ladies,  who  are  represented  as  giving  a  play  of  the  great  tragic 
poet  Racine  (1639-1699).  Two  of  Racine's  plays,  Esther 
(1689)  and  Athalie  (1691),  with  plots  derived  from  the  Scrip- 
tures, were  written  at  the  request  of  Mme.  de  Maintenon. 

429  :  6.    Vaisselle  plate,  i.e.  gold  (or  silver)  plate. 

429  :  13.  eighty-two  years  of  age.  If  Louis  XIV  was  born 
in  1638,  he  would  be  only  seventy-six  in  1714,  the  year  of  our 
story.     He  died  September  1,  1715. 

429  :  21.  the  Bastile,  the  celebrated  state  prison  in  Paris, 
which  became  specially  notorious  under  Richelieu's  adminis- 
tration (1624-1642).  See  Carlyle's  splended  description  of 
the  storming  of  the  Bastille  in  his  French  Revolution. 

429  :  22.  the  Conciergerie,  the  prison  of  the  Palais  du 
Justice  in  Paris.  Originally  a  fortified  palace,  the  part  where 
the  concierge  dwelt  received  this  name,  the  position  being 
one  of  great  responsibility,  as  he  had  charge  of  all  royal  and 
distinguished  prisoners.  It  was  there  that  Marie  Antoinette 
was  imprisoned  and  executed  in  1793. 


NOTES  585^ 

429  :  29.  Mat,  i.e.  Matthew  Prior,  the  poet  and  envoy.  Cf.. 
428:  4. 

430  :  9.  caballing.  The  origin  of  the  word  "cabal"  is  due 
to  the  initials  of  the  members  of  an  unpopular  ministry  of 
Charles  II,  which  held  office  1667-1673.  It  consisted  of  Clifford, 
Ashley,  Buckingham,  Arlington,  and  Lauderdale. 

430  :  28.    at  the  Maypole  in  the  Strand,  the  name  of  an  inn. 

431  :  3.  Arria  .  .  .  Cornelia.  Arria  was  a  Roman  matron 
whose  husband  was  condemned  to  death  for  a  conspiracy  against 
the  Emperor  Claudius  in  42  a.d.  When  he  hesitated  to  kill 
himself  as  was  commanded,  Arria  plunged  the  dagger  into  her 
bosom,  saying  to  her  busband,  "  Paetus,  it  does  not  pain  me.'"^ 
Cornelia,  daughter  of  Scipio  Africanus,  the  elder,  and  mother 
of  the  two  Gracchi,  Tiberius  and  Caius,  whom  she  boasted  as 
her  "  jewels."  Thackeray  is  not  taking  these  names  historically, 
but  typically. 

431  :  7.  Dr.  Berkeley's  tar- water.  Bishop  Berkeley  (1685- 
1753),  the  well-known  idealistic  philosopher,  is  famous  both 
for  his  Theory  of  Vision  in  speculative  philosophy  and  his  advo- 
cacy of  tar-water  as  a  universal  remedy. 

432  :  28.  Eikon-Basilike,  literally,  "royal  hkeness,"  a 
book  published  after  Charles  I's  execution  in  1649,  purporting 
to  describe  his  sufferings. 

433  :  11.    Calves  .  .  .  prodigal  sons.    Cf.  Luke  xv.  11-32. 

433  :  24.  Rochester,  a  seaport  and  cathedral  citj^  in  Kent, 
on  the  road  from  London  to  Canterbury  and  Dover.  James 
II  had  sailed  from  Rochester  for  France  in  1688.  The  Prince 
is  made  to  land  at  Dover  (434  :  28)  and  pass  through  Canterbury 
(435 :  17)  to  Rochester,  and  so  to  London. 

434  :  36.  the  kingdom  of  Brentford.  This  was  a  favorite 
subject  of  Thackeray's.  In  Fraser's  Magazine,  May,  1834, 
Thackeray  published  his  poetical  version  of  Beranger's  II 
etait  un  Roi  d'  Yvetot,  giving  it  the  title  of  "The  King  of  Brent- 
ford." In  The  Paris  Sketch  Book,  1840,  under  the  heading  of 
"Imitations  of  B^ranger,"  Thackeray  published  another  version. 


586  HENRY   ESMOND 

of  the  same  poem:  Le  Roi  d'Yvetot —  The  King  of  Yvetot 
He  rewrote  the  verses  a  third  time  for  George  Cruikshank'a 
Omnibus,  December,  1841. 

435  :  7.    The   K ,  i.e.  the   King  (the  Stuart   Pretender). 

435  :  12.  le  grand  serieux,  the  Great  Serious.  Cf.  438  :  18. 
Don  Bellianis  of  Greece,  a  typical  hero  of  romance,  as  before. 

435  :  15.  sneer  at  everything.  Thackeray  is  giving,  in 
Frank  Esmond's  words,  his  own  conviction  as  to  the  Stuart 
princes. 

435  :  33.    un  verre  d'eau,  a  glass  of  water. 

435  :  35.    ma  foi,  my  faith. 

436  :  30.  ferried  over.  The  present  Westminster  Bridge 
of  stone  was  not  begun  until  after  our  story  in  1739,  and  was 
completed  in  1750.  Yet  reference  is  made  to  the  ''splendid 
new  bridge,"  187:  6. 

436  :  35.  the  Bishop,  i.e.  the  Bishop  of  Rochester,  Francis 
Atterbiiry.  Cf.  426:  6.  The  "lady  in  the  highest  favour  at 
Court"  was  Lady  Masham  (cf.  290  :  3),  and  the  "two  noble- 
men of  the  greatest  rank"  were  probably  Harley  and  St.  John, 
though  it  can  refer  to  others  (cf.  474 :  5  ff.). 

437  :  24.  Tenez,  etc.  Stop,  she  is  pretty,  the  little  mother; 
Faith  of  a  knight!  she  is  charming;  but  the  other,  who  is  this 
nymph,  this  star  which  glitters,  this  Diana  who  is  descending 
upon  us  ? 

437  :  28.  Beatrix  .  .  .  descending  the  stair.  It  is  the 
second  time  Thackeray  has  made  use  of  this  radiant  picture, 
showing  before  the  effect  on  Esmond  and  now  on  the  Prince. 

439  :  20.  Golconda  in  India,  noted  for  the  mausoleums  of 
former  kings  and  its  diamond  industry. 

440  :  24  Simois  .  .  .  Sigeia  tellus,  and  prcBlia  mixta 
mero  are  echoes  of  the  afternoon  Esmond  spent  in  Addison's 
room.    Cf.  266  :  20. 

440  :  30.  Mr.  Under  Secretary.  Addison  had  been  Under- 
Secretary  of  State,  1700-1708. 

443  :  4.    wooden  shoes,  worn  by  those  in  service  and  by 


NOTES  587 

the  peasant  class  in  Holland,  France,  Italy,  and  the  continental 
countries. 

443  :  9.  Nithsdale.  William  Maxwell  (1676-1744),  fifth 
Earl  of  Nithsdale,  an  adherent  of  the  exiled  Stuart  King,  James 
II,  referred  to  in  the  Jacobite  song,  "Kenmure's  up  and  awa', 
Willie."  Taken  prisoner  at  the  battle  of  Preston,  he  was  sent 
to  the  Tower  of  London,  and  sentenced  to  death.  His  wife 
contrived  his  escape  by  disguising  him  in  her  hood  and  cloak 
—  a  garment  afterward  popularly  named  for  him  —  and  re- 
maining herself  in  prison  in  his  stead.  He  escaped  to  Rome,  and 
died  there  in  1744.  Derwentwater.  James  Radcliffe  (1689- 
1716),  third  Earl  of  Derwentwater.  He  was  brought  up  at 
St.  Germains  in  France,  whither  the  Stuarts  were  banished, 
as  a  companion  of  the  young  prince,  James  Edward,  but  re. 
turned  to  England  m  1710,  and  joined  the  conspiracy  of  1715. 
He  surrendered  at  Preston  and  was  imprisoned  in  the  Tower 
with  Lords  Nithsdale  and  Kenmure.  All  were  condemned  to 
die.  Nithsdale  escaped  and  Derwentwater  and  Kenmure  were 
executed  together,  despite  all  efforts  made  to  save  them. 

443  :  12.    petite  maison,  cottage  or  country  home. 

443  :  29.  Crispin,  the  regular  name  for  an  impudent  valet, 
a  stock  character  in  French  comedy. 

443  :  33.  Assez,  milord,  etc.  Enough,  my  lord,  I  am  tired 
of  the  sermon. 

443  :  36.  le  petit  jaune,  etc.,  the  little  yellow  fellow,  the 
dark  colonel,  Marquis  Misanthrope. 

445  :  31.  Archbishop  of  Esmond  and  Marquis  of  Canter- 
bury, an  intentional  witty  transposition  of  the  titles. 

446  :  25.  Harley  for  Oxford,  etc.,  i.e.  each  for  himself,  these 
being  different  designations  of  the  same  man. 

446  :  31-2.  the  Rogues  Opera,  i.e.  the  Beggar's  Opera,  which 
Gay  wrote  in  1728.  Peachum  is  the  father  of  the  heroine 
Polly,  who  is  married  to  the  highwayman,  Captain  Mac- 
heath. 

447  :  17.    the  Treasurer,  i.e.  Harley,  Lord  Oxford. 


588  HENRY    ESMOND 

447  :  30.  greatest  satirist  the  world  ever  hath  seen,  i.e. 
Swift.     Cf.  the  following  lines. 

448  :  4.  Grand  Inquisitor,  the  director  of  Court  of  Inquisi- 
tion, an  ecclesiastical  court  for  the  detection  and  suppression  of 
heretics. 

448  :  7.    the  stupid  Sacheverel.     Cf.  339 :  8. 

448  :  20.  Boulogne  in  Picardy,  on  the  English  Channel,  just 
south  of  Calais,  in  northeastern  France,  where  troops  could 
be  held  ready  for  embarkation  to  England. 

448  :  26.    their  King.     Cf.  10  :  10  and  44  :  38. 

449  :  5.  The  Elector  of  Hannover  had  wished  to  send  his 
son,  the  Duke  of  Cambridge.  "The  Elector"  was  later  George 
I,  and  his  son,  George  II.     Cf.  411    :  24. 

449  :  21.  St.  Anthony's  fire,  a  skin  disorder  of  the  nature  of 
erysipelas.  The  bones  of  St.  Anthony  are  said  to  have  wrought 
great  wonders  during  an  epidemic  of  this  disease  in  southern 
France  in  the  eleventh  century. 

455  :  27.    Ehl    mon  pere,  Ah!   my  father. 

456  :  7.  chaplain  .  .  .  lordship,  i.e.  Lord  Bishop,  who 
was  assisted  by  his  chaplain  in  his  services  and  duties. 

456  :  38.    alerte,  sharp  attack. 

457  :  21.    ultima  ratio,  last  resource. 

459  :  5.  Hounslow,  a  town  twelve  miles  southwest  of 
London,  a  former  relay  for  travellers  and  centre  for  coaches. 
Cf.  Hounslow  Heath,  461    :  24  and  462  :  26. 

461  :  19.  post-chaise  .  .  .  carriage  .  .  .  coach.  All  three 
words  are  used;    as  also  "chariot,"  462  :  31. 

462  :  3.    billet,  note. 

462  :  6.    Lord  B ,  i.e.  Lord  Bolingbroke. 

462  :  21.    Bacchus,  the  god  of  wine. 

462  :  26.    coram  latronibus,  in  the  face  of  the  robbers. 

462  :  34.  Bagshot,  in  Surrey,  ten  miles  southwest  from 
Windsor.     Cf.  207  :  25. 

464  :  3.  blooded,  i.e.  bled.  Hence  "cup"  as  a  verb  in  the 
_next  line. 


NOTES  589 

464  :  7.  II  faut,  etc.,  it  is  necessary  to  be  lovable  to  be 
loved  —  with  a  word  play. 

467  :  36.    lache,  dastardly. 

468  :  10.  King  John.  A  reference  to  King  John's  accep- 
tance of  his  crown  from  the  Pope  in  1213. 

469  :  10.  the  watchman  .  .  .  sang  his  cry.  A  former 
custom. 

469  :  14.    Apres,    Monsieur,  And  what  next? 
477  :  2.     Mr.   George  nor  Mr.   Dragon,  a  word  play  on  the 
well-known  legend  of  St.  George  and  the  Dragon, 

477  :  12.  Eikum  Basilikum,  i.e.  Eikon  Basilike.  Cf.  432: 
28. 

478  :  27.    banales,  commonplace. 

478  :  33.  Alton  in  Hampshire,  between  Winchester  and 
London. 

480  :  12.    a  silver  statue  to  our  Lady,  i.e.  to  the  Virgin  Mary. 

483  :  7.    Qui  est  la,  Who  is  there  ? 

483  :  18-19.  the  King,  as  he  himself  claimed;  the  Prince  of 
Wales,  as  the  people  might  have  acclaimed  him  awaiting  the 
Queen's  death. 

483  :  34.    Morbleu,  i.e.  'Sdeath  of  1.  20.     So  484 :  6. 

484  :  2.    guet-a-pens,  i.e.  ambuscade,  lying  in  wait. 

484  :  18.  "Madame"  and  "Flamme,"  "Cruelle"  and 
"Rebelle,"  and  "Amour"  and  "Jour,"  i.e.  Madam  and  Flame, 
Cruel  and  Rebel,  and  Love  and  Day. 

484  :  30.    Malediction,  Curses ! 

485  :  28.  I  draw  this  sword,  and  break  it.  In  "The  Point  of 
View  "  in  Scribner's  Magazine  for  April,  1906,  Professor  Brander 
Matthews  calls  attention  to  the  fact  "that  when  Colonel 
Esmond  broke  his  sword  before  the  unworthy  prince  whom  he 
had  served  so  long  and  so  loyally,  he  was  onl}^  following  an 
example  which  had  been  set  by  the  noble  Athos,  who  broke  his 
sword  also  before  Louis  XIV  because  that  inhuman  monarch 
had  taken  for  himself  Mile,  de  la  Valliere,  the  young  lady 
beloved  by  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne,  who  was  the  son.  ol 


590  HENRY   ESMOND 

Athos.  And  the  same  effect  is  to  he  found  also  in  [Donizetti'g\ 
opera  of  La  Favorita.  The  scene  of  the  sword-breaking  .  .  . 
may  have  been  introduced  into  the  book  of  the  opera  by  the 
fertile  and  ingenious  Scribe.  La  Favorita  was  produced  in  1840 
when  Thackeray  was  in  Paris  preparing  the  Paris  Sketch  Book. 
It  was  in  1850  that  Dumas  published  the  Vicomte  de  Bragelonne ; 
and  it  was  in  1852  that  Thackeray  put  forth  Henrij 
Esjnond." 

485  :  32.  Monmouth,  the  half-brother  of  King  James  II 
who  rebelled  against  the  King  in  1685,  was  defeated,  captured 
and  executed.  Drj-den's  poem,  Absalom  and  Achitophel,  deals 
with  the  times  and  events. 

486  :  11.    armoire,  closet. 

486  •  13.  Merci,  monsieur,  mercil  Thank  you,  sir,  thank 
you! 

486  :  23.  Eh  bien,  etc.  Now,  Viscount,  .  .  .  there  is  only 
one  thing  for  us  to  do. 

486  :  28.    Embrassons  nousl     Let  us  embrace. 

487  :  24.  he  ...  I,  a  change  from  the  third  person  to  the 
first,  as  if  recalling  the  illusion  of  the  Memoirs. 

488  :  16.  Boniface's  stairs.  Boniface  is  a  landlord  in 
Farquhar's  play,  The  Beaux'  Stratagem,  and  so  a  name  for  a 
keeper  of  an  inn. 

488  :  17.  his  Prime  Minister,  i.e.  the  Bishop,  who  doubtless 
expected  to  become  the  Primate  of  the  English  Church,  the 
Archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

488  :  28.  Hammersmith,  a  London  suburb,  six  miles  west 
of  St.  Paul's. 

488  :  30.  my  Lady  Warwick's  House,  i.e.  Holland  House. 
Cf.  269 :  8. 

489  :  1.  tabards,  cloaks  of  heavy  ornamented  material,  worn 
by  heralds  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Cf.  Chaucer's  Tabard 
Inn,  which  had  for  its  sign  a  sleeveless  coat,  the  early  form  of 
the  "tabard,"  which  was  worn  by  mediaeval  knights  over  their 
armor. 


NOTES  591 

489  :  2.  George,  i.e.  George  I,  hitherto  the  Elector  of 
Hanover. 

490  :  4.  vincit  omnia,  overcomes  all  things.  The  full 
quotation  is  Amor  vincit  omnia. 

491  :  2.  German  family,  i.e.  Flemish.  The  word  is  used 
loosely  for  Dutch  and  Flemish,  as  well  as  specifically  German. 
Cf .  393 ;  28. 

491   :  13.    my  son,  i.e.  my  stepson. 

Dedication.  William  Bingham,  Lord  Ashburton.  William 
Bingham  Baring,  second  Lord  Ashburton  (1799-1864).  "He 
distinguished  himself  by  his  strenuous  advocacy  of  the  teaching 
of  'common  things'  in  national  schools.  .  .  .  His  houses 
.  .  .  became  centres  of  life  for  many  eminent  men  in  politics 
and  literature,  and  especially  for  Charles  Buller,  Thackeray, 
and  Carlyle." — Dictionary  of  National  Biography,  III,  193. 

5-6.  Dedication  to  the  Patron.  Thackeray  openly  avows 
that  his  book  "copies  the  manners  and  language  of  Queen 
Anne's  time,"  and  hence  the  "Dedication  to  the  Patron,"  usual 
in  English  literature  from  the  sixteenth  to  the  eighteenth  cen- 
turies, may  not  be  omitted.  Volumes.  "  Esmond  "  originally 
appeared  as  three  volumes,  corresponding  to  the  Three  Books. 

9-10.  when  the  Author  is  on  his  voyage,  etc.  Thackeray 
was  impatiently  waiting  to  look  over  the  proof  sheets  of  his  novel 
before  taking  the  steamer  for  Boston,  on  his  first  visit  to  America 
to  deliver  his  "Lectures  on  the  English  Humourists."  This 
"Dedication"  is  dated  "London,  October  18,  1852";  Thackeray 
sailed  from  Liverpool  by  the  steamship  Canada,  October  30, 
receiving  from  the  publishers,  as  he  stood  on  the  pier  ready  to 
embark,  the  first  copies  of  his  new  book. 


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DeQuincey's    Joan    of    Arc    and  The    Eng-lish    Mail-Coach. 

Edited    by    Carol    M.    Newman^    Virginia    Polytechnic 

Institute. 
Dickens's    A    Christmas    Carol    and    The    Cricket    on    the 

Hearth.     Edited  by  James  M.  Sawin  and  Ida  M.  Thomas, 
Dickens's  David  Copperfield.     Edited  by  Edwin  Fairley.     2 

vols. 
Dickens's  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities.     Edited  by  H.  G.  Buehlek, 

Hotchkiss    School-    Lakeville,    Conn.,    and    L.    Mason. 
Dryden's  Palamon  and  Arcite.     Edited  by  Percival  Chubb, 
JBarly  American  Orations,   1760-1824.     Edited  by   Louie  R. 

Heller.     Instructor  in  English  in  the  De  Witt  Clinton 

High  School,  New  York  City. 
Edward's  Sermons.     Selections.     Edited  by  H.  N.  Gardiner, 

Professor  of  Philosophy,   Smith  College. 
Emerson's  Earlier  Poems.     Edited  bv  O.  C.  Gallagher. 
Emerson's      Essays.     Selected.      Edited      by      Eugene      D. 

Holmes. 
Emerson's  Representative  Men.     Edited  by  Philo  Melvtn 

Buck,   Jr.,  William   McKinley  High   School,   St.   Louis, 

Mo. 
Engflish  Narrative  Poems.    Edited  by  Claude  N.  Fuess  and 

Henry  W^  Saneorn. 
Epoch-makinp"  Papers  in  TTnited  States  History.    Edited  by; 

M.    S.    Brown,    New   York   University. 
Franklin's    Autobiog-raphy. 
Mrs.  Gaskell'B  Cranford.     Edited  by  Professor  Martin  W. 

Samtson,  Indiana  University. 
fteorge  Eliot's  Silas  Marner.  Edited   by    E.    L.    Gdlick, 

Lawroncevillo    School,    Lawrenoeville,    N.    J. 
Cteorg-e  Eliot's  Mill  on  the  Floss.       Edited  by  Ida  Ausher- 

mann. 
Oold  smith's     The    Deserted    Tlllagre    and    The    Traveller 

Edited  by  Robert  N.  Whitefoed,  High  School,  Peoria. 

UL 


pocket  Series  of  English  Classics — Continued 


Ooldsmitli's   Vicar   of   Wakefield.     Edited  by  H.   \..   Boyn- 

TON,    Phillips    Academy,    Andover,    Mass. 
Gray's   Eleg-y  and  Cowper's  John  Gilpin.     Edited  by   J.  H. 

Castleman. 
Grimm's  Fairy  Tales.     Edited  by  James  H.  Fassett,  Super- 
intendent  of   Schools,   Nashua,   N.   H. 
Hale's    Tlie   Man    Without    a    Country.      Edited    by    S.    M. 

Tucker. 
Hawthorne's  Grandfather's  Chair.    Edited  by  H.  H.  Kings- 
ley,    Superintendent   of   Schools,   Evanston,    111. 
Hawthorne's   The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables.     Edited  by 

Cltde  Fcrst. 
Hawthorne's  Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse.     Edited  by  C.  E. 

Burbank. 
Hawthorne's  Tang-lewood  Tales.     Edited  by  R.  H.  Beggs. 
Hawthorne's    Twice-Told   Tales.      Edited   by   C.    R.    Gaston. 
Hawthorne's    The   Wonder-Book.     Edited   by   L.    E.    Wolfe, 

Superintendent    of    Schools,    San    Antonio,    Texas. 
Holmes'   Autocrat   of  the   Breakfast   Table.  Preparing. 

Holmes'  Poems    (Selections).     Edited  by  J.   H.   Castleman. 
Homer's  Hiad.     Translated  bj^  Lang,  Leaf  and  Myers. 
Homer's   Odyssey.      Translated   by   Butcher  and   Lang. 
Hughes'    Tom   Brown's    School   Days.      Edited  by   Charles 

S.  Thomas. 
Husley's  Essays  and  Addresses.     Selections.     Edited  by  P. 

M.  Buck. 
Irving-'s    Alhambra.       Edited    by    Alfred    M.    Hitchcock, 

Public  High   School,  Hartford,   Conn. 
Zrvingf's  Knickerbocker's  History  of  New  York.     Edited  by 

Prof.  E.  A.  Greexlaw,  Adelphi  College,  New  York  City. 
Zrvingr's    Life    of    Goldsmith.      Edited    by    Gilbert    Sykes 

Blakely,     Teacher    of    English    in    the    Morris    High 

School,   New   York  City. 
Irving-'s  Sketch  Book. 

Irving-'s  Tales  of  a  Traveler.     Edited  by  Jennie  Chase. 
Heary's  Heroes  of  Asgard.     Edited  by  Charles  H.   MorsS. 
&  Kempis'     Imitation   of  Christ.      Edited   by   Brother   Lko. 
Xing-sley's    The    Heroes :     Greek    Pairy    Tales.      Edited    hy 

Charles    A.    McMurry.    Ph.D. 
Xamb's  Essays  of  Elia.     Edited  by  Helen  J.  Robins. 
D^amb's   Tales   from  Shakespeare.     Edited  by  A.   Ainger. 
Lincoln's  Addresses.     Edited  by  Percival  Chubb. 
Iiockhart's  life  of  Scott.     Selections.  Preparing. 

tong-fellow's    Courtship    of    Miles    Standard.      Edited    by 

Homer   P.    Lewis. 
X<mfffellow's     Courtship    of    Miles     Standish,     and    Minor 

Poems.      Edited   by   W.    D.   Howe,    Butler   College,    In- 
dianapolis. Ind. 
Irong-fellow's    Bvang-elin^. .     Edited    by    Lewis    B.    Sbmplh, 

Commercial    High    School,    Brooklj'-n.    N.    Y. 
long^ellow's  The  Song  of  Hiawatha^    Edited  by  Elizabeth 

J.  Fleming,  Teachers'  Training  School,  Baltimore,  Md. 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics — Continued 


tonfffellow's   Tales   of  a   Wayside   Imi.     Eaited   by   J.   BL 

Castleman. 

Iiowell's  Vision  of  Sir  Iiaunfal.  Edited  by  Herbest  E. 
Bates,  Manual  Training  High  School,   Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison.  Edited  by  C.  W.  French, 
Principal    of   Hyde   Park   High    School,    Chicago,    111. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Clive.  Edited  by  J.  W.  Pearce,  As- 
sistant  Professor  of  English   in   Tulane   University. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Johnson.  Edited  by  William  Schuy- 
ler, Assistant  Principal  of  the  St.  Louis  High  School. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Milton.     Edited  by  C.  W.  French. 

Macaulay's  Essay  on  Warren  Hastings.  Edited  by  Mrs. 
M.   J.  Frick,  Los  Angeles,   Cal. 

Macaulay's  Ziays  of  Ancient  Rome,  and  other  Poems. 
Edited  by  Franklin  T.  Baker,  Teachers  Colleg>6> 
Columbia   University. 

Malory's    Morte   d' Arthur    (Selections).      Edited   by   D.   W. 

SWIGGETT. 

Memorable  Passag-es  from  the  Bible   (Authorized  Version). 

Selected  and  edited  by  Fred  Newton   Scott,   Professor 

of  Rhetoric   in   the   University   of   Michigan. 
Milton's    Comus,    Lycidas,    and    other    Poems.      Edited   by 

Samuel  E.   Allen. 
Milton's  Paradise  Lost^  Books  X  and  H.     Edited  by  W.  I. 

Crane. 
Old  Engrlish  Ballads.     Edited  by  William  D.  Aembs,  of  the 

University  of  California. 
Old  Testament  Selections.     Edited  by  F.  N.  Scott. 
Oral  Eng-lish.     Selections.  Preparing. 

Out  of  the  ISTorthland.     Edited  by  Emilie  Kip  Baker. 
Palg-rave's    Golden    Treasury   of   Song's   and   Lyrics, 
Parkman's  Oreg-on  Trail.     Edited  by  C.  H.  J.  Douglas. 
Plutarch's   Ziives   of   Caesar,    Brutus,    and  Antony.      Edited 

by   Martha   Brier,    Polytechnic   High   School,    Oakland, 

Cal. 
Poems,   Narrative   and  Iiyrical.     Edited  by   Robert   P.    St. 

John. 
Poe's  Poems.     Edited  by  Charles  W.  Kent,  University  of 

Vircrinia. 
Poe's  Prose  Tales.     Selections. 
Pope's  Homer's  Iliad.     Books  1,  VI,  XXH,  ZXIV.     Edited 

by  ALnKRT  Smyth.  IToad  Professor  of  English  Language 

and  Literature.  Central  High  School,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 
Pope's  Komer's  Hiad.  Conaplete.  Edited  by  C.  E.  Rhodes. 
Pope's    Homer's    Odyssey.      Edited    by    E.    S,    and    Waldo 

SlIUMWAY. 

Pope's    The   Rape   of   the   Iiock.      Edited   by   Elizabeth  M. 

King. 
Christina      Bossetti's      Poems.        Selections.        Edited     by 

r'TTARLF?-.     "(^KT.I,     Bl'RKK. 

Suskln's  Crown  of  Wild  Olive  and  the  Queen  of  the  Air. 

Edited  by  W.  F.  Melton. 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics — Continued 


Baskln's  Sesanite  and  Iiilies   and  The  King  of  the  Oolden 

Biver.      Edited   by   Herbert   E.    Bates. 
Scott's  Ivanhoe.     Edited  by  Alfred  M.  Hitchcock. 
Scott's  Kenilworth.     Edited  by  J.  H.  Castleman. 
Scott's  Lady  of  the  Iiake.     Edited  by  Elizabeth  A.  Pack- 
ard. 
Scott's   Iiay   of  the   Last   MinstreL     Edited   by    Ralph   H. 

Bowles. 
Scott's   Marmion.     Edited   by   George   B.    Aiton,    State   In- 
spector  of  High   Schools  for   Minnesota. 
Scott's    Quentin    Durward.      Edited   by    Arthur   Llewellyn 

Exo,  Instructor  in  the  University  of  Illinois. 
Scott's    The    Talisman.      Edited    by    Frederick    Trecdley, 

State  Normal  College,   Ohio   University. 
Select  Orations.     Edited  by  A.  M.  Hall. 
Selected  Poems  for  Required  Reading-  in  Secondary  Schools. 

Edited  by  H.  N.  Boynton. 
Shakespeare's  As  You  Like  It.     Edited  by  Charles  Robert 

Gaston. 
Shakespeare's  Hamlet.     Edited  by  L.  A.  Sherman,  Professor 

of  English   Literature  in   the  Universitv   of  Nebraska, 
Shakespeare's  Henry  V.     Edited  by  Ralph  Hartt  Bowles, 

Phillips   Exeter   Academy,   Exeter,   N.   H. 
Shakespeare's   Julius   Caesar.     Edited  by  George  W.   Huf- 

FORD  and  Lois  G.   Hcfford,   High  School,   Indianapolis, 

Ind. 
Shakespeare's  King"  Lear.     Edited  by  Philo  M.  Bucf. 
Shakespeare's  Macbeth.      Edited  by  C.   W.   French. 
Shakespeare's   Merchant  of  Venice.      Edited   by  Cha^x.  )ttb 

W.  Underwood,   Lewis  Institute,  Chicago,   111. 
Shakespeare's  Midsummer  Nig-ht's  Dream.     Edited  by  E,  C. 

NOYES. 

Shakespeare's   Richard   H.      Edited   by   Jambs    Hugh   Mof- 

fatt. 
Shakespeare's  The  Tempest.     Edited  by  S.  C.  Newson. 
Sliakespeare's     Twelfth     Niglit.       Edited     bv     Edwasd    [P. 

Morton. 
Shelley    and    Heats    Poems.     Selections.     Edited    by    5.    C. 

Newson. 
Sheridan's  The  Rivals,  and  The  School  for  Scandal.    Edited 

by   W.    D.   Howe. 
Short  Stories.     A  Collection.    Edited  by  L.  A.  Pittengeb. 
Southern  Orators.     Edited  by  J.  H.  McConnell. 
Southern   Poets.     Selections.     Edited  by   W.   L.   Webeb. 
Qpenser's  Paerie  Queene,  Book  I.     Edited  by  George  Arm- 
strong  'W'lArCHOPE,   Professor  of  English  in   the   South 

Carolina   College. 
Stevenson's  Kidnapped.     Edited  by  John  Thompson  Brown. 
Stevenson's  Master  of  Ballantrae.     Edited  by  H.  A.  White. 
Stevenson's  Travels  with  a  Donkey  and  an  Inland  Voyage. 

Edited  by  W.  L.  Cross. 
Stevenson's    Treasure    Island.      Edited    by    H.    A.    Vancb, 

Professor  of  English   in  the   University   of  Nashville, 


Pocket  Series  of  English  Classics — Continued 


Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels.     Edited  by  Clifton  Joh:7son. 
Tennyson's    Idylls    of   the    King".      Edited   by   Charles   W. 

French. 
Tennyson's  In  Memoriam.     Edited  by  J.  W.  Pearce. 
Tennyson's     Sliorter    Poean^.       Edited    by    Charles    Read 

Nutter. 
Tennyson's  Tlie  Princess.     Edited  by  Wilson  Farrand. 
Thackeray's  Henry  Esmond.     Edited  by  John  "Bell  Henne- 

MAN,   University   of  the   South,   Sewanee,   Tenn. 
Tliackeray's  Unglish  Etunorists.     Edited  by  J.  C.   Castlb- 

MAN. 

Thoreau's  "Walden.     Edited  by  Byron  Ries. 

Trevelyan's   Life  of   Macanlay.     Selections.  Preparing. 

Virg-il's  Aeneid.  Translated  by  Conington.  Edited  by 
Edgar  S.  Siiumway. 

WasMngrton's  Farewell  Address,  and  Webster's  Pirst  Bun- 
ker Hill  Oration.     Edited   by  William   T,   Peck. 

Wliittier's  Snowbound  and  other  Early  Poems.  Edited  by 
A.  L.  BouTON. 

John   Woolman's   Journal. 

Wordsworth's  Shorter  Poems.     Edited  by  Edwaed  Fulton, 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGlGV 


B     000  003  893     5 


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